Venture looking to invest in Yorkshire firms

CITY of London ‘supermum’ Nicola Horlick is looking for investment opportunities in Yorkshire for her new private equity fund.

Speaking at an event in Leeds, the mother of six told the audience that “it’s better to invest when times are tough” and many private companies are “desperate for capital”.

Rockpool Investments has already backed two businesses in the region, a Bradford catering equipment firm called Airedale and a crematorium in Kirkleatham, near Redcar.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The venture is raising money for Chicago Rib Shack, which will open its third UK restaurant at the Trinity Leeds shopping centre later this year.

“It’s very difficult to borrow money and raise money for business,” said Ms Horlick. “That’s why I set up Rockpool.”

She said 250 high net-worth individuals have invested in the fund, which uses the tax-efficient Enterprise Investment Scheme.

Ms Horlick said her investors are motivated by making money and a sense of altruism “to get Britain back to work and get the economy growing again”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The fund has completed six deals to date, totalling nearly £20m. Four of the six are in the North of England and Scotland, said Ms Horlick, who is from Cheshire.

“It always drives me crazy that everyone is so South East-centric,” she said.

“There is a bit of a North-South divide. Although things are tough in financial services, there are still plenty of bonuses flying around in the City of London.

“It seems that London is doing well. But when I come up north there are some parts of the country that have been hit pretty hard by cuts in the public sector.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“That ripples out and starts to affect the private sector.”

Ms Horlick made her name as a high-flying fund manager in the City. She started her career at SG Warburg, the well-regarded investment bank, and went on to manage funds worth tens of billions of pounds for Morgan Grenfell and Societe Generale, earning her the sobriquet ‘supermum’.

She said Britain needs long-term fixes to avoid decades of Japanese-style stagnation, such as increasing the number of engineers and computer scientists produced by the education system.

She also called for greater commercial exploitation of university research and innovation.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Ms Horlick was one of the speakers at the Buy Yorkshire conference and exhibition organised by the Yorkshire Mafia networking group.

Other speakers included care homes-to-sports cars tycoon Lawrence Tomlinson, Freeserve founder Ajaz Ahmed and Jonathan Straight, chief executive of recycling specialist Straight plc.

Mr Straight told the audience that social impact is becoming a more important consideration for business leaders.

He said: “Creating employment is a social good but you can go way beyond that. You can look at the impact of the products and services you are selling.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Tomlinson, who is advising the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on helping entrepreneurs, welcomed Lord Heseltine’s report on devolving more powers to the regions but said Britain needs someone “incredibly strong” to drive it through. “Hezza’s not that man,” he said. Alastair Campbell, the controversial New Labour spin doctor, spoke about the issue of mental health in society and urged employers to adopt a more progressive approach to mental illness among workforces.

The former communications chief suffered a nervous breakdown when he was a hard-drinking journalist in the 1980s.

He told the audience: “We are meant to be one of the most advanced societies in the world. On this we should be leading the way and changing attitudes more quickly than we are.”

Another communications expert spoke about the PR challenges faced by the banking sector, which has been rocked by a succession of scandals.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Tim Kiy, corporate affairs director at Barclays, said: “We know it’s going to take years to get back to the point where all of our customers will place their trust fully in us again, if they do. We are determined to do that. We know it’s about actions not words.”

Related topics: