Mercia sees ‘excellent finish’ to year, with £250m inflows

Regional investor Mercia Asset Management has finished the year on a high, expecting its EBITDA to be ahead of current market expectations.

With more than £1.8bn of assets under management, Mercia said the benefits of its increasing scale are “now beginning to feed their way into the group’s overall financial performance”.

In the last three months, existing fund mandate increases, new fund management contracts awarded and successful VCT and EIS fund raises have totalled around £250m. There were no redemptions during FY25.

After seven years as Chief Investment Officer, Julian Viggars has today stepped down from Mercia’s board to enable him to concentrate all of his time on the group’s equity portfolios’ investment performance. 

Mercia’s direct investment portfolio has made “good overall technical and commercial progress” despite a challenging market backdrop for venture investing.

Its closing cash and cash equivalents position as of 31 March 2025 was £40m, and the group remains debt-free.

In Mercia’s interim results last November, it revealed it had invested £133m into 86 businesses across all the funds and the balance sheet, including 46 new fund portfolio companies. 

£47m of new capital was raised across its Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS) and Northern Venture Capital Trusts (VCT), alongside an additional £10m equity allocation to the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund I from the British Business Bank, during the period.

Dr Mark Payton, CEO of Mercia Asset Management PLC said: “We are pleased to update that Mercia has had an excellent finish to the financial year. Our second successive year of significant fourth quarter organic fund inflows, coupled with a strong trading performance, is testament to our clear strategy of focusing on growing our profitable specialist asset management capabilities. 

“It also reflects Mercia’s increasing ability to effectively deploy equity and debt funding across the UK, through our established regional footprint of 11 offices and our extensive deal flow networks, to generate attractive returns over time for our investors.

“Our debt free cash position as at 31 March 2025 of c.£40million, means that Mercia has entered the new financial year in a very healthy position. We look forward to announcing our FY25 full year results on Tuesday 1 July 2025.”