In Brief: Braveheart; Northminster; Addleshaw Goddard
BRAVEHEART Investment Group, which manages the £43m Finance Yorkshire
Equity Fund (FYEF), today posted pre-tax loss of £845,000, against profit of £67,000 last year.
In its interim results to the end of September, Braveheart, which provides financing for SMEs, said £805,000 of the losses were directly attributable to Envestors, which it disposed of earlier this month. Fee-based revenue remained steady at £1.3m.
Braveheart is headquartered in Scotland with offices in Yorkshire and Belfast. The AIM-listed group which owns Viking Fund Managers which manages Finance Yorkshire’s equity linked fund, said the FYEF had a good second quarter concluding 13 investments, totalling £4.34m.
Braveheart said: “With a growing portfolio we are building our support team and seeking to add value by appointing non-executive directors to assist our portfolio companies in their growth and development.
“In July 2013 we were pleased to announce our first exit from the fund. This exit generated a return of £3.2m on an original investment of £1.6m over approximately 30 months, thereby generating a money multiple of two and an IRR of 51%.”
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A £1m sale of four business units has been completed at Northminster Business Park in York.
Four light industrial units, all of which have tenants, have been sold by the owner of the 20-acre business park, Northminster, to a private investor.
The units, which total 13,500 sq ft, include Endeavour House, occupied by digital colour printing equipment supplier Xeikon; Unit 2F, occupied by Newsquest (Yorkshire & North East) as a distribution centre; Unit 2B, occupied by global engineering business, Renishaw, and Unit 1E occupied by Tenneco Automotive UK.
The total rent from the four units, which are part of a broader investment portfolio for the new owner, is understood to be in the region of £80,000 a year.
Northminster development surveyor, Alastair Gill, who negotiated the deal, said: “These are all high quality units with a good tenant profile which have a strong commitment to York and, as such, provide a very sound investment opportunity.
“The announcement by The Bank of England that it intends to keep bank interest rates low until unemployment falls means that investing in property, where rental income can result in a far better return, remains very attractive.”
Among other tenants at Northminster Business Park are WebCertain, Lynden Design, Unilabs, McCarthy & Stone, Pavers and UK Wealth Management.
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A GREEN power station which will generate enough energy to power 1,500 households is to be built by Biogen, in a deal acted on by the Leeds office of law firm Addleshaw Goddard.
Biogen, the UK’s leading food waste anaerobic digestion (AD) specialists, has said that the plant, which will open at Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s Bryn Pica site in Aberdare, will have the capacity to process up to 22,500 tonnes of food waste each year.
The plant will be operational in late 2014. The anaerobic digestion plant will use naturally occurring microorganisms already present to break down the food waste, which would otherwise be sent to landfill, to generate green power.
The company has a 15 year contract with partner councils Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil and Newport City to design, build and operate the AD plant, which will have the ability to produce 1,000 megawatt hours of electricity annually. In addition to the renewable energy produced, the plant will produce 18,000 tonnes of nutrient-rich fertiliser to be used in the region by local farmers.
The Leeds based Addleshaw Goddard team advising Biogen was led by legal director Paul Dight, and included Chris Gill, Alison Paton, Pete Mason and Ben Peecock.
