Seneca chief hungry for more deals
THE founder of Seneca Partners is expecting to build on the strong foundations put in place during its first full year in business.
Dealmaker Ian Currie, who set up Seneca in late 2011, says the firm’s achevements in 2012 – which include making 15 investments, raising two funds and building his North West team and expandinf into Yorkshire and the West Midlands was a “good result”.
He is expecting activity levels to step up a gear this year, with work in progress (WIP) at encouraging levels amid high demand from SMEs.
Mr Currie told the TheBusinessDesk.com: “With SMEs still struggling to access the funding they need to grow from traditional sources, including the banks, we are seeing high numbers of excellent investment opportunities.
“Making 15 new investments, closing our bridging finance and first EIS fund, launching our banking sdvisory and North West corporate finance businesses, establishing a presence in Birmingham and Leeds and expanding the team from 11 to over 20 during the course of 2012 was a good result for us,
“Our WIP is more buoyant than it was a year ago and therefore we are anticipating that we will be even more active in 2013 than we were in 2012.”
“The demand from the SME sector for funding is high and we continue to expand our investor base to support our investing activities.”
With investor interest in its funds and more than 10 investment opportunities in-bound every week, Mr Currie said he is “excited” about prospects for the year ahead: “Our goal is to continue to position Seneca as a leading investor in, and advisor to, the UK’s SME sector,” he added.
Seneca’s most recent investment was into North Wales based ADC Biotechnology, as part of a £600,0000 second-round fund-raising led by Accleris Corporate Finance.
ADC is developing and commercialising a new antibody drug production technology.
