Stephen Welton, who runs Business Growth Fund, the UK’s most active investment vehicle, has questioned the business model of Britain’s venture capital firm.
The total amount of VC money invested in Britain rose by 37pc to £4.4bn over the first six months of this year, according to KPMG.However, venture capitalists are shying away from investing in early stage UK start-ups in favour of placing bigger, fewer bets on scale-ups.
But Welton, who runs Britain’s most active scale-up investor, says the VC model is flawed because it relies on identifying potential unicorns – companies which will eventually be worth $1bn or more – to offset losses made by other investments.
RBS: Expanding your business in the digital economy
As business leaders we hold multiple responsibilities, primarily to clients, suppliers, staff and partners. However this can lead to us losing focus on our key purpose which is the creation of value in our businesses. We strive to meet customer expectations, continually manage supplier needs and of course focus on how to hire, motivate and lead our staff. But where in this mix do we have the time to truly build the business?
Allan Campbell, Business Growth Enabler for The Royal Bank of Scotland, Business Banking is proud to provide you with the opportunity to learn from the experts and learn from real life examples of success. In three short presentations you will hear how this conundrum can be resolved, what techniques you can use immediately to help and how the value generated can be realized in terms of wealth creation. The subject will be discussed by three speakers each with their own unique take.

RBS approach
RBS has published a significant proportion of the disclosures recommended by the EBA Pillar 3 guidelines in its 2016 Pillar 3 report and 2016 Annual Report and Accounts (2016 ARA). Disclosure requirements relating to capital, leverage and securitisation were not addressed in the 2016 EBA Guidelines and are unchanged from the prior year. The more significant changes compared with the 2015 Pillar 3 report are set out below:
1: RBS has implemented the sequencing and nomenclature of templates in line with the EBA Pillar 3 Guidelines with additional tables covering CRR requirements and other key disclosures, principally credit risk.
2: A significant number of CRR Common Reporting (COREP) templates are included at varying degrees of aggregation compared with COREP.
3: The exposure measure in the 2016 Pillar 3 Report is aligned with COREP for some of the templates, for example gross exposure in addition to exposure at default (EAD).
4: Gross exposures are analysed into defaulted and nondefaulted. Templates EU CR 1_A, EU CR 1_B, EU CR 1_C are based on COREP. Analysis of impairment provisions, impairment charges and write-offs and forbearance (templates EU CR 1_A, EU CR 1_B, EU CR 1_C; EU CR 2_A and EU CR2_B) are addressed in the 2016 ARA based on accounting values.
5: Template EU CRB_D maps CRR regulatory exposure classes to the industry sectors used by RBS Credit Risk for internal risk management.
6: Additional analysis of netting, collateral and credit conversion factors is provided.
