Round Table
PROVIDERS AND ADVISERS – IS THE COMMUNICATION GETTING BETTER?
At a Round Table session in November hosted by Calculus Capital, one of the main topics was the varying criteria that make an investee company attractive to capital providers and to IFAs and their clients. Chairman for the day Richard Angus, of Hardman & Co, wanted to know if the two sides were beginning to understand each other better.
T
“
hey are,” said Bruce Elliot-Smith, CEO of Venture2Grow. “I’ve gone from when there was no provider information, no IFA involvement, and I was doing demos for about a year, so I was getting a lot of feedback. Then the GrowthInvest platform came along. I raised money for hundreds of companies. When I met new IFAs, I knew they just wanted to know how to do it.
“Let’s face it, IFAs want clients, so if they meet the CEOs of the companies, it changes as they develop a relationship with that provider. That became the norm for me, and more recently I have another trend which is in philanthropic investing. If you have that element to your fund, it makes it easier for me to go that way round, so I’m essentially in the adviser’s shoes working backwards.”
“The first thing that is asked is what is different about the provider? It could be track record but the big thing that made a difference was taking the investment, so I found when you introduced the company, it would spark the interest to look at that provider.
Andy Davidson, CEO of We Are Nova, agreed. “It’s a dichotomy, you should look at data, portfolio spread and how to maximise returns, but that can be perceived as dull. If you can get your client in front of someone who talks well, that really works. People
GB Investment Magazine · March 2020
9
