The £400m investment fund made available to boost the North West economy was launched by the British Business Bank at the UK Northern Powerhouse Conference and Expo in Manchester.
The financing has been set up to enable regions SMEs to fund expansion, purchase new machinery or equipment, hire staff, commence export or invest in any other area of a business to realise its potential.
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF) will offer funding to the below fund managers who in return will assist the region’s businesses in securing microfinance, business loans, equity finance.
- Microfinance: Business Finance Solutions and MSIF, Finance for Enterprise and Business Enterprise Finance
- Business Loans: FW Capital and Enterprise Ventures
- Equity Finance: Maven Capital Partners and Enterprise Ventures
Jonathan Chadwick: “This investment fund has the design to unlock the potential of many of the region’s SMEs and our clients. It now remains vital to ensure that businesses can in fact access the funding with relative ease. Stephensons has long standing relationships with all of the fund managers involved with NPIF and we encourage all of our existing and prospective clients to seriously consider the benefits of this scheme”.
According to recent government figures to Northern Powerhouse is currently home to more than one million businesses generating 19% of the UK GDP.