Seneca completes successful first close for venture capital trust
Seneca Partners, the specialist SME finance business, has completed a successful first close for its recently launched VCT (venture capital trust) offering, Seneca Growth Capital VCT, amid high demand from investors.
The VCT offering was launched in May and having already reached its initial fundraise target, the first £3.1m allotment of shares took place on August 23, 2018.
On the same day the VCT’s name was changed to Seneca Growth Capital VCT and Seneca was appointed as investment manager.
Haydock-based Seneca has the capacity to raise, in this offer, up to £20m in this tax year.
But its ambition is to take the VCT to more than £50m.
The Seneca Growth Capital VCT aims to provide investors with both income and capital returns by investing in a diverse portfolio of both unquoted and AIM/NEX quoted UK companies.
The VCT is targeting companies with attractive growth potential and strong leadership teams seeking an injection of growth capital to support their continued development.
Given the increasing demand for tax advantaged investment opportunities, Seneca expects its VCT and EIS funds under management to increase substantially during the remainder of the current tax year.
John Davies, investment director of Seneca Partners, said: “Seneca is already an active growth capital investor through the EIS funds that we manage, which exceed £50m.
“Adding the VCT to our offering is very exciting and further expands Seneca’s range of tax advantaged investment opportunities.
“Following the first allotment of shares for the Seneca Growth Capital VCT we now have more than £10m of EIS and VCT growth capital to invest over the next six months, with a number of very exciting businesses currently in due diligence.”
He added: “Our expertise in growth capital investing makes the Seneca Growth Capital VCT an obvious solution for investors seeking to invest in this space – our capabilities have been extended to offer an attractive tax-efficient diversified investment product, while increasing our investment flexibility and fire-power to support SMEs.”
