soco report: applying david cameron’s ‘big society’ idea to help small companies to lift the...

8/8/2019 Soco Report: Applying David Camerons Big Society idea to help Small Companies to lift the UK Economy

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Equity Development are regulated by the Financial Services Authority

SoCo

How David Camerons Big Society idea can be applied

to helping Small Companies to lift the UK Economy


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2 www.equitydevelopment.co.uk

SUMMARY

SoCo points to smaller companies as the best bet to lift and sustain Britains

economic growth - but only if, they can find appropriate finance.

SoCo takes its name from David Camerons Big Society idea of decentralisation

of services away from the State. It applies that principle to the decentralisation

of finance for smaller companies away from the dominating banks that refuse to

lend to them and the financial institutions that are too big to embrace them.

SoCos findings suggest that, given proper incentives, business angels alone could

invest 4 billion in start-up companies a sum which is greater than any form of

assistance that could be expected from the government.

It observes that, thanks to the effects of the internet and new media, small

companies have a much greater chance of succeeding than ever before.

SoCo points to the ever shortening time scales of companies from start-up to

global success and suggests that there are embryo companies that we havent

heard of today that will be world striding giants in under five years.

It highlights the resilience of an economy based on small companies:

It draws fresh attention to the fact that smaller companies employ more than half

the UK workforce and observes that, as they grow, smaller companies take on

more employees to cope with increasing sales, whilst large mature companies

with limited growth prospects often seek to improve earnings by reducing their

labour forces.

It records that small companies are drivers of innovation, registering more than

60 per cent of all patents.

It points out that small company by and large pay taxes whilst many of the

largest companies avoid them.

It observes that when large companies fail, they cause national, even global

distress; whereas when small companies fail, the effect is minimal and localised.

Against that background it calls for a much greater differentiation of regulation

between large companies and small.

In particular, it calls for a sustained effort to be made to lift from smaller

companies the excessive burden of catch-all red tape that is principally designed

to monitor and control large companies. This burden has a disproportionate

effect on small companies.

It pleads for a complete rethink of employment law for companies employing,

say, less than 20 people. This would take the vast proportion of the UKs

businesses out of a regulatory nightmare but would have little effect on

employment conditions. In this respect, it also draws attention to the greater

satisfaction enjoyed by employees of smaller companies who can see that their

efforts actually make a difference.


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www.equitydevelopment.co.uk 3

Finally, the report observes that a new atmosphere of trust must be established if

individual investors are to be attracted to support companies both small and

large.

With that in mind, it calls for a removal of the core conflict that has neutered theFinancial Services Authority. That conflict sits between the objective ofpolicing

the Cityand that ofprotecting the reputation of the City.

It reports the views expressed by the former CEO of the FSA Howard Davies, that

senior figures at the FSA used that conflict to argue against action to tackle

regulatory and market abuse, stating that action would draw attention to the

abuse and thus damage the reputation of the City. It points to that conflict as a

major cause of the failure of the FSA.

SoCo argues that new clear objectives must be established and truly independent

officials must be appointed if the Bank of England is not to fall into the same

morass as the FSA.

It demands tighter policing of the smaller end of the quoted company market so

that the usual suspects rogue promoters are denied access to investors who,

when robbed of their savings, are deterred from further investment, thus

denying the market as a whole an important source of funding and liquidity.

It refers to the higher returns available from smaller companies across the board,

to the savings to be made by individuals managing a proportion of their own

investments and to the time being right to encourage individual investment in

small companies low because of the rates of interest available in the market

place.

It draws attention to the loss of confidence in financial institutions that places the

UK near the bottom (101 out of 110 countries) of the recently released Legatum

Institutes Prosperity Index.

It points out that these factors combined are already driving investors to look for

superior returns and account for a substantial increase in business angel

investment. It encourages the coalition government to support this trend.


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CONTENTS

SUMMARY 2

THE OPPORTUNITY 5

RECOMMENDATIONS: 7

BACKGROUND 11

CORE OBSERVATIONS 12

THE IMPORTANCE OF SMALLER COMPANIES 14

QCA Summary of Corporate Governance SQC Guidelines: 32


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SoCo contends that small companies are good for growth, for employment and for

a resilient economy. It draws attention both to the opportunities and to the

difficulties facing small companies. In particular it reviews how they might be

financed and suggests thats where Prime Minister David Camerons Big Society

idea should be applied..

The coalition government has promoted the vision of Building the Big Society

and has stated its driving ambition: to put more power and opportunity into

peoples hands.

The concept underlying the Big Society is the diffusion of power away from the

centre. This has wide ramifications throughout society in all spheres of human

activity.

We are concerned with the business implications of that philosophy and, in

particular, those relating to smaller companies, whose ambitions and concerns

Equity Development has supported for many years.

We want the coalition government to make it easier for individuals to

play their part in financing these companies. To step in where the banks

that dominate the economy have failed and where funds that are driven

by imperatives that make it unattractive for them to invest in those very

small companies that can become the giants of tomorrow.

We suggest a number of initiatives and reforms. As we point out, this will not only

help small companies but, by encouraging individual investment, the

mechanisms could also help create an appropriate pricing tension in the market

that could be helpful when the government gets round to selling off assets likethe Tote and to disposing of its dominating stakes in the banking industry.

All successful companies are built on small beginnings. Many fail, but many

survive, and some mature to replace the dominant companies of the day as they

wither away in the completion of their life cycle. They have to be replaced or the

economy will die a slow death.


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RECOMMENDATIONS:

Angel Investors (Page 17):

A target size for angel investment in the U.K. might be 60,000 investors,

committing $4 billion a year to 10,000 ventures. A sum of money that would

eclipse anything offered by way of Government assistance to small companies.

Employment (Page 8):

After government, small companies are the principal source of growth in

employment and even during a world recession small-to medium-sized companies

(SMEs) are the most important source of employment.

Policy (Page 21):

The timing for new initiatives to help these companies could not be more urgent.

Private Investors (Page 13) And Appendix 4 (Page 33):

Companies both small and large should take note that there is an enthusiastic

wealth management community that is looking for better access to companies.

Last year these brokers had 390billion of assets under management and

conducted 15 million trades of which 82 per cent were on line.

The QCA points out: far more could be done to facilitate participation by certaincategories of private investors. In particular, we believe that web-based

technology is sufficiently advanced to allow companies to approach such investors

directly.

The PIPE (private investment in public equity) market has been abused by hedge

funds in the U.S. but in 2008 almost 1,000 transactions brought in some

$90billions of valuable funding. The scope for such a market in the UK is well

worth exploring.

It is likely that low denomination debt offerings by companies to their customers

and members will emerge. These escape onerous prospectus requirements if the

debt is non-transferable. The attraction of debt with a decent coupon is obvious

whilst interest rates are so low and ways should be found to make such issues

less onerous.

One way might be for Government to encourage sophisticated investors to

register, either centrally or with recognised distributors, in order to facilitate

issues of both debt and equity.

Given the effective nationalisation of so much of our banking infrastructure we

can expect a pipeline of major IPOs in the next few years apart from the

readymade favourites such as the Tote. All would benefit from mechanisms that

allowed easier access to private investors.


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AIM Green Paper Recommendations (Page 29):

The AIM Green Paper submissions are sensible and affordable. The plea for a

phased withdrawal of Stamp Duty from SQCs is a perennial that seems unlikely to

flower in the present chilly climate of austerity but it has great merit. Stamp Duty

revenues from trading in AIM shares accounts for only 5 per cent or approx180m of the overall Stamp Duty take. Its withdrawal would increase the total

amount of capital investment by up to 7.5 billion a year and bring back into the

market much needed liquidity that is currently siphoned off into the murky world

of spread betting.

Sqcs As An Asset Class (Page 21):

Given that over a period of some 40 years small caps produced a return that was

three times the UK equity market as a whole and micro caps out performed by

ten times, it would be beneficial both to investors and the economy if

mechanisms could be found to allow investors access to SQCs as a defined asset

class.

Scrutiny (Page 22/23):

The catastrophic effect of large company failures justifies the recommendation

that government smaller company policy should recognise that large companies

must bear a much greater burden of scrutiny than should be applied to smaller

companies.

A great and sustained effort should be made to lift from smaller companies the

excessive burden of catch-all red tape that is principally designed to monitor and

control large companies. This burden has a disproportionate effect on small

companies because it distracts the wealth creators who have to deal with it

themselves.

SQC Corporate Governance (Page 12):

The excellent Quoted Companies Alliance guidelines (see Appendix 1) are

accepted by the best companies but ignored by the worst, i.e. those that most

need to apply them. Currently there is no easily accessible place for non-

executive directors and others to express their concerns. This leads to poor

governance and often to fraud. Theres a job here for Vince Cables Department of

Business, Innovation and Skills to set up a whistleblowers corner where people

can raise legitimate concerns and an easily accessible register ( perhaps a mash

up of existing difficult to find information) of people who have transgressed,

including bankrupts. Currently, the process of digging out information is far too

difficult and time consuming.

European Legislation (Page 24):

The European Prospectus Directive is an attempt to limit the impact of fraud and

misallocation of capital, not to prevent that fraud and misallocation itself. It will

stifle the growth of the very companies that we most need to lift us out of

recession and it is misplaced.


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The right approach is to police issues more intensively, to establish more

accessible whistleblowing facilities for complainants, to make information more

readily available on people who have transgressed (including bankruptcy) and,

perhaps, to re-equip the financial regulator with the power to ban unsound issues

by people who are deemed to be not fit and proper.

The FSA (Page 22):

The conflict within the FSAs established objectives appalled the founding chief

executive Howard Davies and unless they are made more coherent they will drive

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King to distraction as well.

Policing (Page 13 And 25):

The small end of the market is often the point at which small investors oftenenter the market. Once these small investors have been scared off they do not

return. It is in the interests of liquidity that the market should be purged of that

small number of usual suspects who account for the great majority of all sharp

practise and fraudulent activity.

The threshold for the investigation of such matters should be lowered to the floor.

Any and all wrongdoing should be prosecuted and, in admission of Tomorrows

Giantserror, a working party should be set up to consider returning regulation

of the market to the operators.


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Pan European Market (Page 24):

The emergence of pan-European funds should provide a stimulus to the truly pan-

European stock market that is so desperately needed.

Big Company Tax Avoidance (Page 28):

To this end the coalition government might consider slicing through the Gordian

knot complexity of big company tax avoidance schemes by adopting the idea of

the new Business Secretary Vince Cables General Avoidance Rule. This would

deem that tax be applied wherever there is an intention to avoid tax, even if the

loophole has not been identified in advance by the Her Majestys Revenue and

Customs (HMRC).


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BACKGROUND

This paper is, in part, a sequel to the 1999 paper Tomorrows Giants, which the

former senior Treasury official, Craig Pickering, and I wrote in that year.

Tomorrows Giants was itself a plain man's guide to the Riches Report a Treasury

report published alongside the Chancellor's 1998 Pre-Budget Statement. Both

advocated policies to benefit smaller companies as a driving force of the economy

and, together with the earlier Williams Report, they achieved a number of helpful

reforms.

The Riches Report was produced by a working party that I was asked to bring

together by the Treasury in 1997 to look into the importance and funding of

Smaller Quoted Companies (SQCs). I invited Derek Riches, then head of retail

distribution at Merrill Lynch, to become Chairman. Craig Pickering was the

leading Treasury member of that group and he had also led the team that

produced the Williams Report on the financing of high technology companies.

Together, these reports succeeded in stimulating a number of reforms relating to

taxation (in particular Self Invested Pension Plans (SIPPS) and Capital Gains Tax

Taper Relief) and to the regulatory role of the Stock Exchange. Other important

recommendations, particularly those relating to financial education, regrettably,

were not successful.

Ten years on I was asked by the Quoted Companies Alliance (QCA) to revisit the

smaller company and SQC scene. This paper contains some of my findings and

observations.

I am grateful to John and Stephen Borgars, Clem Chambers, Sir Ronald Cohen,

Andy Edmond, Conor Fahy, Professor Chris Higson, John Pierce, Marcus Stuttard,

Helen Jeeves, Claire Dorian, Tim Ward, Punit Mistry, Richard Jenkinson, Derek

Riches, Tony Hilton, Ian Watson, Nigel Morris, Guy Rigby, Sara Lee, Andrew

Baker and many others for their assistance. Sponsorship from the QCA and Equity

Development has also been helpful; however, the views expressed are my own.

Brian Basham,

November 2010


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Dissatisfaction ratings for those who had one (13 per cent) or two (27 per cent)

business managers was low but the rating increased significantly for those firms

which had three or more managers, with three at 52 per cent, four at 53 per cent

and five at 70 per cent dissatisfaction.

Despite 26 per cent of firms saying that having a good working relationship with

their bank manager was one of the most important factors in their choice of high

street bank, almost half (46 per cent) of respondents bank managers were not

based locally.

The FSB is calls for the establishment of a Post Bank utilising the Post

Office network. This, the FSB suggests, would provide a local and trusted

option for the UKs small businesses as well as providing more

competition in the banking sector.

It warns: It is vital the Government looks at new ways to change behaviour in

the credit market for small firms, as the economy cannot return to business as

usual with current lending conditions.

Many small companies that are lucky enough to have existing lines of credit are

managing to survive because of artificially low interest rates but we can expect

the number of liquidations to soar as interest rates rise.

This is dangerous for the economy not only because smaller companies are

already important as the biggest employers, the drivers of growth and the founts

of innovation but because they are about to become more important than ever

before.

And, as John Walker, National Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses, has

observed:

Demand for finance is at its highest as the economy enters recovery. If the

Government truly believes that the private sector is going to help avoid a double-

dip recession, it needs to consider alternative sources of finance.


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THE IMPORTANCE OF SMALLERCOMPANIES

Send me a Bill that creates or saves four million jobs.

President Obama's first White House press conference,

February 9, 2009

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. Thisis no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and

courageously.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

After government, small companies are the principal source of growth in

employment and even during a world recession small-to medium-sized companies

(SMEs) are an important source of employment.

Research into micro-companies following the 1989-93 crash, when corporate

confidence last collapsed, found that survivors increased employment by 50 per

cent whilst larger companies were reducing it by 6 per cent.

There are now circa 5.0 million small businesses in the UK.

Small firms employ more than 58 per cent of the private sector workforce,

thats 13.5 million people.

Small firms contribute more than 50 per cent of the UK turnover

64 per cent of commercial innovations come from small firms as measured by

patents registered

More than 500,000 people start up their own business every year

Almost all small companies (97 per cent) employ fewer than 20 people

Small firms collect and pay Tax, NICs, VAT and other dues which help pay for

public services.

The evidence is clear that small companies promote growth and innovation.

Moreover an economy with smaller companies at its core is more resilient

because although, individually, small companies are more likely to go broke than

large companies, when they do so they cause relatively little damage either to the

economy or to investors at large.

For example when Marconi went broke, just 5 per cent of the loss from its peak

capitalisation was equivalent to the whole capitalisation of the sub 250 SQC

market. When Woolworths failed it cost 27,000 jobs. When these giant companies

merely hiccup, the market shudders so that BPs recent dividend strike accounted

for some 8 per cent of the total dividends paid by all quoted companies.


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Unlike large companies, small also pay their taxes. A Guardian newspaper

investigated corporate tax avoidance in depth. It found that a third of FTSE 100

companies paid no tax in 2005-2006, and another third paid a minute proportion

of their operating profits.

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) does not know how much tax

companies avoid, but its estimates rise as high as 13.7 billion. It says

that 12 of the UK's largest firms extinguished all liabilities in 2005-2006

through avoidance mechanisms.

And small companies take on more people as they grow, unlike so many large

companies, which are under constant pressure to cut their workforces and

thereby boost the earnings per share upon which management rewards are

based.

The top ten companies in the FTSE-100, by market capitalisation prior to the

crash, comprised three oil companies, three miners, two pharmaceutical

companies, one bank and Vodafone. UK employment statistics are not easy to

winkle out but it appears that the current top ten employ only 500,000 people in

the U.K. with Tesco employing by far the bulk of those.

It follows, therefore, that the benefits to the national economy of a

robust smaller company sector justify special tax treatment to stimulate

the provision of equity capital. In this context, a return of the ten percent

capital gains tax taper relief provision would stimulate investment in

smaller companies more than any other fiscal measure.

The Power to Transform:

The list of companies that were born in recession is long. It reaches back to the

1870s, with General Electric through to Microsoft and Apple in the 1970s, Google,

eBay, and Amazon in the 1990s to Skype in 2002.

In todays environment businesses can accelerate to great size amazingly quickly

and transform not only their host economies but also the wider commercial world.

When Tomorrows Giants was published, eBay (founded September 1995), Amazon

(July 1995), and Google (January 1996) and Yahoo (January 1994) were in their

infancy. Two years ago, before the recent stock market collapses, the smallest ofthem, Amazon, had a market capitalisation of $37 billion, Google stood at $216

billion, eBay at $50 billion and Yahoo was $42 billion.

The phenomenon that is Skype grew from a standing start in September 2002 to

be sold for $2 billion to eBay in October 2005. At the end of last year it had 405

million open accounts, more than 30 million people were using it each day and

they consumed more than 20 billion Skype-to-Skype minutes.

New media is now allowing very small companies to grow at amazing rates by

helping them to crash through the steeple-high obstacles that have historically

impeded these tiny businesses. Barriers of distribution, marketing,

communications, recruitment and the management of both external and internal

information are tumbling down.


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The Internet, Skype, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, mobile phones apps and free

Open Source software all enable companies to sell goods, to spread the word, to

recruit, to manage and to communicate with their colleagues and customers in

ways that were never before possible.

The Internet remains the most important facility but Britain is already far behind

in developing its potential.

For example, Korea is committed to a total spending of $24.6 billion over the next

five years and the project is expected to create 120,000 jobs. The most

remarkable change is that high-speed Internet and wireless broadband services

will be upgraded to 1 Gbps broadband--meaning their speed will be at least 10

times faster compared to the U.K.

This infrastructure failure by the UK will prevent small companies from bringing

forward the bright ideas that make a difference.

A recent government study has claimed that there is not enough demand from

the public for increased broadband speed but that is to miss the point entirely. A

digital highway is like a real highway and as the inventor of the internet, Sir Tim

Berners Lee, has said of Government data, put it out there and people will turn it

into something useful.

Renewable Energy:

And now there is a new wave of business developing in the renewable energy

sector. President Obama has made this the third of his five pillars of U.S.

recovery, and in the U.K. alone the sector could give birth to many new jobs.

The potential is vast and the rewards can also come in terms of security of energy

supply, as an important buffer of strategic independence from Russia and the

Middle East.

Aim:

Capital provision demands a respected and efficient stock market for smaller

company shares, one that is transparent, well policed and as lightly regulated as

is consistent with the market achieving investor respect.

The London Stock Exchanges Alternative Investment Market (AIM) AIM is the

most successful growth market in the world. Since its launch in 1995, over 3,000

companies from across the globe have chosen to join AIM.

Secondary issues have raised a bit more than primary over the years, especially

in the last three and a half years. Clearly AIM is providing a much needed source

of funds for its existing client companies in these straightened times.

However, more than one company a day delisted from AIM throughout last year,

many of them to save the relatively high cost of maintaining a listing and the

number of companies quoted on AIM is now 1,276 compared with more than

1,600 three years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Tim_Berners_Leehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Tim_Berners_Leehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Tim_Berners_Leehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Tim_Berners_Lee


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AIM did well to raise 5.5 billion last year but that was just a third of the 2007

total with 620m of the total raised by one company, Songbird Estates, owner of

London's Canary Wharf office complex.

Despite AIM share prices soaring by 66 per cent last year, outperforming themain stock market, just 36 companies joined AIM the lowest annual total since

the small-firms exchange was launched in 1995 and just 8 per cent of the 462

companies that joined in 2006. Moreover, only half those companies were new,

the other 18 were transfers from the main market.

It was a creditable performance that circa 760m of the new money raised was

for new issues although 557m of that was for seven issues for companies in the

250m market cap bracket.

The smaller end looked like this:

Market Cap Total raised (m) Number of Transactions Average Value of Transaction (m)

1m-5m 8.8 7 1.3

5m-10m 7.9 3 2.6

10m-50m 44.1 13 3.4

50m-100m 122 6 20.4

Source:AIM

Of course, AIM is dependent upon investor confidence and in the wake of the

crash that has been lacking but it could do more to increase confidence by

lobbying Vince Cables Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to help it

improve corporate governance.

AIM operates on the basis of a series of contracts between the market and those

market members who are nominated advisors (Nomads). The Nomads, in turn,

have a contractual relationship with their clients, the quoted companies.

AIM uses this trail to maximum effect, often working behind the scenes, winkling

out bad Nomads and giving a nudge here and there. But, thanks in part to

Tomorrows Giants, which (mea culpa) recommended giving the FSA the task of

policing the market, AIM has limited powers and, rightly, is loath to impose ever

more rules.

It took a great leap forward when it introduced Rule 26, that makes it obligatory

for a company to publish a web site upon which it records its corporate

government policies and, for those sophisticated enough to look and understand,

thats a good facility.

The great gap in the protection wall is that there is nowhere obvious for a

complainant to go with concerns about either the corporate governance or the

general conduct of a company AIM or otherwise. Nor is there any readily

available source of information on people who have been found wanting either as

bankrupts, barred directors, even convicted fraudsters.

As a result, the same people come round time and again. They file for bankruptcy

or get struck off as directors and set up again with a false front. They are struckoff as solicitors and reappear as advisors. They even get convicted and a few


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years later, when memories have faded, pop up sponsoring deals with plausible

stories.

The damage these people do is immense and reaches far beyond the money they

steal.

They target investors through unprincipled distribution houses. Once bitten these

investors are naturally twice shy, so the market as a whole is denied an important

source of funding. Even worse, they spook the regulators, in particular the

European Union, who respond by bringing in draconian catch all measures that

have the disastrous effect of making it much more difficult for good companies to

raise money.

The answer lies partly in using new technologies to enable informants to inform,

complainants to complain and most importantly, enquirers to enquire. Most

importantly it also lies in reconnecting the market with the task of policing.

Currently there is no easily accessible place for non-executive directors

and others to express their concerns. This leads to poor governance and

often to fraud. Theres a job here for Vince Cables Department of

Business, Innovation and Skills to set up a whistleblowers corner where

people can raise legitimate concerns and an easily accessible register

(perhaps a mash up of existing difficult to find information) of people

who have transgressed, including bankrupts.

The great strength and the great handicap of the members owned Stock

Exchange was the Stock Exchange Council. This inhibited the development of the

Exchange because the members could hardly ever agree on anything but theywere all old City hands who knew every wrinkle. A visit to the 23 rd floor, where

the Disciplinary Committee sat, was dreaded by all but the most hardened cases

and those were winkled out over time.

As we have found out the hard way, self regulation does not work but there must

be a way to bring back the insights and experience of the old Disciplinary

Committee to take forward the work that has already begun to clean up the

market.

At the same time AIM should make a point of strongly encouraging the Nomads to

persuade their client companies to adopt the most important aspects of the

Quoted Companies Alliances corporate governance guidelines. These excellent

guidelines (see Appendix 1) are accepted by the best companies but ignored by

the worst, i.e. those that most need to apply them.

The guidelines are not onerous but their active promotion by AIM would allow non

executive directors to protect themselves from being regarded by some executive

directors as mere ornaments on the corporate Christmas tree.

The Code identifies certain best practice corporate governance processes and

states that the independence of a board member should be defined according to

the individuals ability to behave appropriately, rather than an absence of

connections.

It suggests that a company should have at least two independent non-executive

directors and should not be dominated by one person or a group of people.


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As a minimum, this paper suggests that it should be:

mandatory for a remuneration committee to report to shareholders outlining

the companys remuneration practices

an audit committee to report the major tasks undertaken and demonstratingindependent oversight of management and the external auditors


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Retail Shareholders:

Retail shareholders are better served than ever before to take informed

investment decisions. Internet sites such as ADVFN (managed by Equity

Developments parent) are inexpensive, even, in some cases, free of charge and

provide up to the minute information that rivals Bloomberg.

Moreover, The Companies Act 2006 represented a major overhaul and

consolidation of existing company law and new law regarding paperless

communications between companies and their members came into effect on 20

January 2007.

For a company with an existing wide shareholder base, paperless communications

can be expected to become the norm but, more than that, it allows companies

that would welcome a wider shareholder base to equip itself to deal with those

shareholders efficiently and economically.

The advantages attached to a wider shareholder base are many. When Equity

Development carried out a private shareholder exercise for BP some time ago, BP

told us that it had researched its peer oil companies and discovered that those

with a wide base showed much greater price resilience.

Sadly, most companies are overawed by their investment bankers who know that

they can make more money for themselves by going the institutional route, so

dissuade companies from considering retail investors.

But this is to ignore the aftermarket, the advantages in terms of profile and public

relations that attach to a company with a large retail presence on its share

register and the important pricing tension that is introduced by moving beyondthe institutional market. And, as Aer Lingus found, going for a quick and easy

placing of underpriced stock with hedge funds which have no loyalty can prove

potentially fatal if a competitor then pops up with an opportunistic bid.

Companies both small and large should take note that there is an

enthusiastic retail stock broking community that is looking for better

access when they launch an IPO. Last year wealth managers had

390billion of assets under management and private client stockbrokers

conducted 15 million trades of which 82 per cent were on line.

When it comes to IPOs, the advantages of retail distribution really begin to pile

on. For a start, commissions are lower. They are likely to cost the equivalent of

0.2 percent to 0.5 percent whereas brokers start at 0.5 percent and go upwards.

There are also likely to be advertising and public relations costs but even adding

those back, retail still substantially undercuts the brokers and bankers and, of

course, advertising also creates brand and customer awareness.

Given the effective nationalisation of so much of our banking

infrastructure we can expect a pipeline of major IPOs in the next few

years apart from the readymade favourites such as the Tote. However, if

the Government and big companies want to penetrate this market they

need to get their ducks in a row now because it does take some initial

organisation and something of a new approach to understanding the

imperatives.


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With email, the internet and the growth in discretionary management a launch

can take place at minimal notice. Road shows or special presentations are not

required, so its a process that is less intrusive on management time; however,

companies can decide to meet retail brokers and that can be helpful. And a retail

IPO can fit in very comfortably with an institutional offer over, for example, a two

week marketing period and a five to seven day offer period.

So, the retail market really does compare in every possible way favourably with

an institutional IPO. There is the same withdrawal right, price range can be

announced as little as five days before the close of the retail offer, shares can be

held in brokers' nominee accounts and there are companies that offer

applications, terms and conditions and other documents ready to go.

Following its merger with Borsa Italiana in 2007, London Stock Exchange Group is

now taking a broader view of mechanisms to encourage individual investors. In

Italy individuals make up around 30 per cent of the value traded in the market

compared with two percent of the London market,

One of the reasons for this is that Italian private investors are allowed direct

access to the market, known as Direct Market Access (DMA).

DMA allows the investor to buy or sell securities directly to the exchange or

market where it is listed and traded. As a result investors can see what is going

on in the market, perhaps to obtain better prices and certainly to make more

informed decisions.

DMA also allows investors to participate with LSE member firms in pre-market

and post-market auctions. This type of trading occurs in the morning hours beforethe Stock Exchange officially opens for regular trading and immediately after it

had closed. While the majority of trades take place during traditional hours, pre

and post-market trading can offer some opportunities to investors.

DMA is a benchmark by which all trading platforms are judged and it is good to

learn that the London Stock Exchange is working with its member firms to extend

the number of participants that offer the service.

Corporate bonds are another possible source of financing. While US companies

have long favoured bond market funding, small and mid-sized European

companies have relied more heavily on bank debt, which was private and

relatively cheap.

But markets made sports headlines when Manchester United launched a 500m

issue and that drew attention to a growing appetite in the bond markets for

smaller issues.

Dealogic provides a platform for investment banking and capital markets

professionals globally to help improve strategy, competitiveness, and execution.

The company reports that during the past year, the average size of UK bond

issues has halved from the peak in 2007 as midmarket companies have enter the

market.

In the UK, the record amounts of debt that companies issued in the boom years

in the loan market are close to maturing. About 350bn of investment-grade


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loans mature between 2011 and 2014 and the refinancing peak comes as soon as

2012.

There is a deep pool of debt liquidity available from US institutions to US

corporates, but the equivalent UK market is underdeveloped.

However, there are signs of progress. Earlier this year the London Stock

Exchange launched an electronic order book for bonds. The new initiative is

modelled on Borsa Italianas highly successful MOT bond market which, with 230

billion worth of trading in 2009, is Europes largest retail fixed income market.

It is to be hoped that the initiative will increase distribution for bonds by opening

up new capital for issuers seeking access to large pools of retail liquidity and this

could stimulate increased retail size issuance of corporate bonds.

A UK company, for example, could issue a bond tradable in units of 1,000, or

even 100 and private investors would be able to buy this bond in the electronicmarket as continuous two-way tradable prices would be provided by a dedicated

market maker.

Angel Groups:

SoCo suggests that angel groups, in particular, should be given tax breaks to

encourage small company investment and that these tax breaks could also be

used as mechanisms for regional development, as has been demonstrated so

successfully in America.

A good first step would be to reform EIS relief which, currently, excludes debt.Michael Weaver, chief executive of Beer & Partners, the UKs biggest angel

investor group, tells us that he has seen an increasing flow of funds from angel

investors but observes:

There is a growing trend amongst US business angels to offer start-up companies

convertible loans instead of providing first-round equity funding.

That this trend is less pronounced in the UK is largely a result of the EIS scheme,

which encourages UK business angels to provide equity finance rather than offer a

convertible loan.

UK business angels are faced with a predicament. Convertible loans can offermore harmonious negotiation process with the deferral of a valuation, but they do

not reward the investor with the benefits of the tax reliefs offered by EIS.

EIS has been the most imaginative measure taken to encourage investment in

business but is now in need of an update. As part of the consultation on the

business finance green paper Financing a private sector recovery we hope that

the government will consider simplification of EIS and include relief for loan

capital as well as equity.

If business angels were to be given greater incentive, important small new

companies would have greater access not only to the capital they need but also to

the help that would come with that capital, as the many Hidden Experts, with

which society abounds, would find it easier to step forward and engage both their

savings and their abundant skills in guiding them forward.


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The time is right, not only because of the fresh political climate but because the

mood of investors is conducive to such a move.

Followers of The Archers, which puts great effort into keeping its finger on the

pulse of rural society, will have picked up a flavour of this when Grandma Woolleysaid 'It's so difficult to find a home for your money these days'as she agreed to

fund her grandsons Tom Archers pork sausage business.

And no wonder she was disenchanted; household name institutions have either

gone broke or been bailed out, fund managers have delivered disastrous returns

and safe investments are showing miniscule returns. By contrast to the other

options available to Grannie W, Toms sausage business becomes a reasonable

bet. She can understand it, see it, know the manager, keep an eye on it and, if

necessary, influence it. In her own way she is a Hidden Expert: she understands

catering, has played her part in running a business and can give Tom sound

guidance.

If savers like Grannie W spread their smaller company investments they are likely

to do at least as well as they would by investing through pooled funds, especially

given the recent records of these funds and taking into account the exorbitantly

high attendant costs.

In compilingtheir gigantic and seminal work, Triumph of the Optimists', London

Business School Professors, Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton

recreated indices for 16 main markets of the world, from publications and public

records going back to 1900.

They recorded that over half a century small cap companies, taken together, haveperformed three times better than the market as a whole and that the tiniest

companies performed circa ten times better.]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

(ii) '1 invested in the UK equity market at the start of 1955 would, with

dividends reinvested, have grown to a nominal value of 592 at the beginning of

2001, an annualized return of 14.9 percent. An identical investment in small-

caps (the HGSC) would have grown to 1,676, almost three times as much,

giving an annualised return of 17.5 percent. Micro-caps performed even better

with their annualized return of 20.8 percent producing a terminal value of 5,961,

three and a half times as much as the HGSC (Hoare Govett Smaller Cos).'

There is strong evidence that private investors are ahead of the game. Richard

Jenkinson of the share register analysts, Junction RDS, tells us that during the

recession, private investors have been putting increasing money into smaller

companies.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates 10 per cent as the average

proportion of private shareholders on a share register but in SQCs it is probably

nearer double that.

ONS defined a private individual as any named individual and this only includes

private individuals directly owning the shares and company directors and since

the last ONS survey in 1997 most analysts have relied on that.

However, Junction RDS believes that they have failed to take into account the

change in the structure of ownership and market direction. More and more people


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are holding their shares through Private Client Brokers (PCBs) and if these are

included in the definition then the percentage of private shareholders is higher.

PCBs FTSE 100 FTSE 350 AIM

Jan 07 4% 5% 8% 13%

Jun 10 7% 12.5% 12% 19%

Source: ED

Junction RDs research suggest that during the recession private shareholders

have actually been increasing their holdings not just by being loyal, or even

apathetic, and not selling but that they have been buying whilst institutions have

been selling.

As a half-way house between single private investors and institutions of

one kind or another, this paper suggests that a strategy for Angel Groups

should be considered.

Angel Groups take many forms but they have in common the characteristic that

people with money gather together to pool their collective knowledge. Many of

these are what may be called Hidden Experts and they pop up in the most

unexpected places. I was at an Angel meeting recently when the chap sitting

next to me began to grill the ceo of the presenting company, demonstrating, in

the process an expertise that made the ceo squirm. The presentation concerned a

retail opportunity and my neighbour turned out to be the former deputy chairman

of one of a major supermarket chain.

Commonly, Angel Groups include entrepreneurs, accountants, lawyers and

business managers both retired and still working. With interest rates and trust at

an all time low, these people are looking for sound propositions that they can

understand and, perhaps help with both money and expertise.

The biggest issue for small company funding is due diligence. Angel Groups can

sometimes manage this within their membership but, however it is managed, due

diligence tends to be costly.

At Equity Development we have been attempting to devise an approach to due

diligence that allows a progressive approach so that the cost is low for small sums

and rises in pace with the sums of money raised. We will report on progress in

due course.

Overall angel statistics are difficult to come by because angel investment tends to

be wrapped up in venture capital statistics but it is probable that Beer & Partners

accounts for about 15 percent of the market. Last year they raised more than 12

million and over the past ten years have raised some 108 million for around 330

transactions. Beer is successful in raising funds for about half the companies it

endorses.

If the circa 15 percent figure is correct, it may imply that angel groups as a whole

have raised perhaps 720 million for small companies, many of them start ups,

over the past ten years and that there are some 10,000 investors.

In the U.S., the angel investor market is much more developed. The number of

active investors in 2008 was 260,500 individuals according to the Center for


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Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. Total investments in 2008

were $19.2 billion and 55,480 entrepreneurial ventures received funding in 2008.

By any number of measures the U.S. is between circa five and seven times the

size of the U.K. Its population is 300 million v 61 million, its GDP $14 trillion v$2.13 trillion and The World Wealth Report 2010 (Capgemini) tells us that in 2009

the UK had 448,000 dollar millionaires against 2.866m in the USA.

It follows that a target size for angel investment in the U.K. might be

deemed to be, say, 60,000 investors, committing $4 billion a year to

10,000 ventures. A sum of money that would eclipse anything offered by

way of Government assistance to small companies.

There may be lessons for the U.K. in this in terms not only of small company

finance but also in terms of regional development.

The U.S. angel movement is driven to a significant extent by localised State-by-State tax breaks. According to Jeffrey Williams of Belmont University, who

published his paper Tax Credits and Government Incentives for Angel Investing in

Various States in July, 2008, in the past decade, more than 20 states have

implemented programmes to attract or retain investment capital by way of

income tax credits.

As state legislatures have the latitude to choose the parameters for any policy

incentive, no two programmes are identical. For example, one programme offers

100 percent credits for investments while others offer minimal incentives. Some

are purely Governmental in structure while others are a public/private hybrid.

Some are tax credits, some are seed funds. Some are deferred capital gainscredits, some are transferable, non-transferable, carried-forward, capped

annually, capped over many years, and more.

This would be a nightmare for the U.K.s wholly centralised tax gathering

but theres no reason why a core relief should not be established with,

perhaps, regional incentives so that credits might vary from, say, 50

percent in the prosperous areas to 100 percent in areas to which

Government might want to direct investment.

In the U.S. tax credits represent a dollar-for-dollar reduction of the investors tax

liability. These tax benefits can be structured as refundable credits or non-

refundable credits. Refundable credits have greater potential value to the

taxpayer because when the taxpayer has a credit greater than the tax liability,

the state will pay the balance to the taxpayer

The benefit of angel tax credits is to reduce the risk and cost of angel investing in

order to encourage more entrepreneurial activity in high-growth small businesses.

The theory is that if successful, these programmes can attract investment dollars,

create jobs, and contribute to the economic growth of the region.

The National Association of Seed and Venture Funds (NASVF) May 2006 report,

Seed and Venture Capital: State Experiences and Optionsincludes an analysis of

the qualities that should guide the states capital investment incentiveprogrammes.


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According to this report, successful states should structure programs that have

the following characteristics: the credit should be financially fair to the state,

sizable enough to be substantially effective, and managed at the discretion of

experienced professionals in the private sector. A programs strong leaders and

champions should be profit-motivated, target the knowledge-based industries,

and constantly evaluate the program to the extent possible. Through this

targeting, the credit should have a narrow purpose requiring minimum legislation,

and the initiative should address a long-term goal.

A summary of selected US states approaches to angel investing is shown at

Appendix 5.


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The SQC Market:

Within smaller company policy, SQCs in particular are to be encouraged. As we

said in 1998: The SQC market can be viewed as the umbilical cord that connects

entrepreneurialism to the body economic. Nothing has changed in that respect.

The importance of the SQC market cannot be over emphasised. Its health has an

impact right down the finance chain. That is why AIM is so important and why

AIM needs jealously to guard its reputation.

Sir Ronald Cohen, formerly of Apax, has said that: When the SQC market is

strong, venture capital managers can raise money. When its weak, they cant.

Tom Mackay, former legal director of the Stock Exchange, former legal director of

3i, now partner of the American law firm, Curtis, Mallet-Prevost and both founder

and chairman of FISMA, the not-for-profit billboard site for small company

business plans says: Angel and start-up investors are strongly influenced by the

state of the SQC market.

John Pierce, former chief executive of the QCA, said: The SQC market is an

important link in the chain of capital that runs from the smallest companies right

through to the main market. If its broken, it affects capital provision right across

the board.

SQCs as an Asset Class:

Given that over a period of some 40 years small caps produced a return that was

three times the UK equity market as a whole and micro caps out-performed by

ten times, it would be beneficial both to investors and the economy if

mechanisms could be found to allow investors access to SQCs as a defined asset

class.

The success of venture capital was initially due to the successful lobbying by the

British Venture Capital Association (BVCA), under the guidance of Sir Ronald

Cohen, for venture capital to accepted as a standalone asset class. As a result

funds under management of BVCA members increased from a smidgeon of total

funds under management by UK institutions to reach something like 7 per cent

a huge sum of money.

A similar initiative with regard to smaller companies would allow the all importantactuarial advisors to institutional funds to advise their clients to maintain

appropriate weighting in the new asset class.

Investors would benefit from superior across the board long-term performance in

a resilient asset class, SQCs would benefit from more stable investment attitudes,

SMEs and all they imply for employment and innovation would benefit from a

strong SQC market.


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The Banking Strike:

The confusing thing about the financial crisis is that the physical economy is in

the same shape as ever; but it can be paralysed if investment money cannot flow

from those who have it to those who use it.

Financial Times Undercover Economist, Tim Halford

The former stockbroker analyst, successful entrepreneur, commentator, Chairman

of Channel 4 and now Chairman of the Royal Society of Arts, Luke Johnson,

writing in the Financial Times, put it succinctly: With few exceptions, the banking

breed has brought capitalism into disrepute and massively compounded a brutal

downturn. Their story is a tragedy for those of us who believe in free markets and

private enterprise.

In the same article he also commented: Ideally, we should adopt a voluntary

spirit of civic decency, and intelligent new forms of incentives that punish as well

as reward.

In the meantime, the support that has been lavished upon banks is a desperate

attempt by governments to stop liquidity draining from the world economy.

Getting money into the banks is one thing; it is proving to be quite another

getting that money out and into the hands of the small companies that need it.

And whilst bankers continue to pay themselves astronomical bonuses and

salaries, as many as 123,000 small companies are reported by the corporate

restructuring specialists, Begbies Traynor, to be showing significant signs of

corporate distress. It is to be expected that about one in four of these will go

broke if nothing is done to help them raise cash and many more will fail if interest

rates increase from their extraordinarily low current levels.

The timing for new initiatives to help these companies could not be more

urgent.

A poll of 1,700 insolvency practitioners by their trade association, R3, came up

with a prediction that insolvencies will actually peak this year at 28,000 compared

with 22,800 last year, which was, itself, a 16 year high.

As the private equity guru Jon Moulton has pointed out that the number of

insolvencies is artificially low because in trouble companies are hanging on by

their finger tips by courtesy of low interest rates.

And the ending of the Government scheme to allow firms to delay their tax

payments will cause more bankruptcies. It will leave HM Revenue & Customs

(HMRC) with no option but to take action to trigger formal insolvency

proceedings. This could lead to a second tidal wave of business failures.

The Turnaround Management Association is Chicago-based and has about 9,000

members in the U.S. It has about 250 members in the U.K.

Its U.K. President, Tyrone Courtman, warned in the Financial Times that dozens

of small companies are being leftto wither on the vine.


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Courtman told the FT that TMA members were finding it harder to turn struggling

companies around without sufficient support from banks. Many of our members

are seeing companies that face financial oblivion,he said.

Courtman reported that despite Government assurances that the Enterprise Finance

Guarantee would underwrite up to 1.3 billion of loans, the most recent figures

indicate that it has only been used to extend a 75 percent guarantee on 2,350

loans worth up to 270 million.

Big Company Governance:

The catastrophic effect of large company failures justifies the recommendation

that government smaller company policy should recognise that large companies

must bear a much greater burden of scrutiny than should be applied to smaller

companies.

That scrutiny should extend to monitoring the ethical and prudent management of

large companies with reference to the sharp practises, including wide scale tax

avoidance that is heavily engineered to defeat the purpose of the tax. Such

avoidance is damaging to small companies that cannot afford the expensive hired

help from the Big Four accountancy firms and others that dream up the avoidance

schemes.

To this end the coalition government might consider slicing through the Gordian

knot complexity of big company tax avoidance schemes by adopting the idea of

the new Business Secretary Vince Cables GeneralAvoidance Rule. This would

deem that tax be applied wherever there is an intention to avoid tax, even if theloophole has not been identified in advance by the Her Majestys Revenue and

Customs (HMRC).

Reform of the FSA:

Confidence to invest in small companies can only be rebuilt if investors believe

that the financial system is being properly policed.

Under Conservative Party proposals, the Financial Services Authority (FSA)

functions are to be taken over by the Bank of England but the conflict within the

FSAs established objectives appalled the founding chief executive Howard Daviesand unless they are made more coherent they will drive Bank of England

Governor Mervyn King to distraction as well.

When the original Tomorrows Giants was being drafted, Howard Davies

complained to its authors that the first of its objectives maintaining market

confidencewas seen by powerful City figures to be in conflict with the third and

fourth, securing the appropriate degree of protection for consumersand fighting

financial crime.

It is this conflict that lies at the heart of the FSAs failure to spot and act

upon the financial wrongdoing and excessive risk taking that certainly

contributed to, and may even have sparked, the global economic crisis.


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The FSA has four objectives under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

Those are:

maintaining market confidence;

promoting public understanding of the financial system;

securing the appropriate degree of protection for consumers;

fighting financial crime.

Influential City figures and, more importantly, senior directors of the FSA argued

that objective one is in conflict with three and four. Making a fuss and even

arresting senior people, they said would shatter market confidence.

We now know they were wrong and that the best way to have encouraged

confidence would have been to have come down hard not only on clear-cutwrongdoing but also upon the sort of wild risk taking that occurred when banks

such as HBOS lent aggressively to homebuyers who were unable to repay their

mortgages.

We shall never really know whether or not the FSA was inhibited by the fact that

Sir James Crosby (former chief executive of HBOS) was Deputy Chairman but it is

a fair guess that confidence will not be rebuilt whilst, echoing Max Mosleys

criticism of the Press Complaints Commission, the Mafia is in charge of the local

police force.

The City is a damaged brand and it is clear that new regulation is needed to

control the banking and securities sectors and to rebuild trust.

Government should lay a light hand on regulation, spend much more on

policing and apply lower levels of red tape to small companies than large.

A one broken window policy on market manipulation and other fraudulent

activity should be instituted to improve the reputation of the SQC market in

particular. The threshold for the investigation of such matters should be lowered

to the floor. Any and all wrongdoing should be prosecuted.

The small end of the market is a kindergarten to the University of Corporate

Crime. It damages the reputation of the market as a whole and is the point at

which small investors often enter the market - sometimes by way of boiler house

promotions. Once these small investors have been scared off by a combination of

chicanery and the degrading effect of dealing costs on their savings, they do not

return.


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European Regulation:

Britain and the US have suffered from a lack of regulation to control bankers,

mega companies and a stifling flood of regulation aimed at protecting the

financial consumer.

Following a round of intensive lobbying, the London market, with AIM to the fore,

has managed to contain the worst excesses of the European Prospectus Directive

so that the threshold for the distribution of a full (and vastly expensive) full

prospectus has been lifted from 100 to a still paltry 150 people.

This is an attempt to limit the impact of fraud and misallocation of

capital, not to prevent that fraud and misallocation itself. It will stifle the

growth of the very companies that we most need to lift us out of

recession and it is misplaced.

The right approach is to police issues more intensively, to establish more

accessible whistleblowing facilities for complainants, to make information more

readily available on people who have transgressed (including bankruptcy) and,

perhaps, to re-equip the regulator with the power to ban unsound issues by

people who are deemed to be not fit and proper because of previous

transgressions.

At least important concessions have now been wrung out of Europe, largely by

the QCA, so that all SMEs and issues of under E100million will now be able to

issue a so called Proportionate Prospectus. Given that the cost of getting a

company to market via a full prospectus has been estimated to be around

E500,000 this concession is long overdue. However, it remains a truth that long

documents verified by expensive solicitors would be shorter and cheaper if there

was less danger of fraud and thats a matter for effective policing.

A Pan-European Market:

Recently, European parliamentarians voted in favour of a management company

passport provision reforming rules covering the 7 trillion European market for

investment funds.

This passport will allow asset managers to sell funds across the EU from a central

base, without having to establish full administrative functions in each jurisdiction.

The issue has been extremely contentious because officials were concerned that

investor protection could be compromised. Since then, however, the Committee

of European Securities Regulators (Cesr) has said that the plans would be

workable and consistent with a high level of protection.

This advance proves that pan-European co-operation on investment is possible

and the existence of pan-European funds should provide a stimulus to create the

truly pan-European stock market that is so desperately needed.


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QCA Summary of Corporate Governance SQCGuidelines:

The Quoted Companies Alliance (QCA) has published new "Corporate Governance

Guidelines for Smaller Quoted Companies" (QCA Code). Since the UK Corporate

Governance Code only applies to companies with a premium listing of equity

shares, the QCA Code is aimed at all UK smaller quoted companies, including

standard listed, AIM or PLUS-quoted companies.

The QCA Code explores the meaning of good corporate governance and argues

that the chairmans responsibility for corporate governance and teamwork on

boards are key elements of effective corporate governance.

The QCA Code states that the independence of a board member should be defined

according to the individuals approach to the role and his/her ability to behave

independently and appropriately, rather than an absence of connections.

The QCA identifies 12 essential good practice Guidelines to achieve the flexible

and efficient framework it believes is key to securing long term growth in

shareholder value:

Flexible, Efficient and Effective Management

Structure and process - companies need to implement the most appropriate

governance structures based on corporate culture, size and business

complexity.

Responsibility and accountability - allocation of responsibility for the

management of the company and for the achievement of key tasks should be

clear. The roles of chairman and chief executive should not be occupied by the

same person.

Board balance and size - a board should not be so large as to prevent it

operating efficiently. A company should have at least two independent non-

executive directors (one of whom may be the chairman if he/she was deemed

independent when appointed) and should not be dominated by one person or a

group of people.

Board skills and capabilities - boards need an appropriate balance of

functional and sector skills and experience to be able to make key decisionsand plan for the future. Boards should be supported by audit, remuneration

and nomination committees with the necessary character, skills and

knowledge to enable them to work effectively.

Performance and development - there should be periodic reviews of the

performance of the board, board committees and individual board members.

Induction, evaluation and succession plans should be updated as a result.

Ineffective directors (executive and non-executive) should be helped to

become more effective or be replaced and membership of the board should be

periodically refreshed.

Information and support - the board and board committees need the best

possible information (accurate, sufficient, timely and clear) to enable them to


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constructively challenge recommendations put before them. Non-executive

directors need access to external advice when necessary.

Cost-effective and value-added service - shareholders need to understand

how efficient and effective governance has added value. This will normally

involve publishing key performance indicators which align with strategy and

feedback through regular meetings between shareholders and directors.

Entrepreneurial Management

Vision and strategy - there needs to be a shared vision of what the company

is seeking to achieve over what period and an understanding of what is

required to achieve this. This vision and direction must be communicated

internally and externally.

Risk management and internal control - the board needs to be able to

define and communicate the companys risk appetite and how it manages its

key risks, while maintaining an appropriate balance between risk management

and entrepreneurship. Remuneration policy should assist with this.

Delivering Growth in Shareholder Value over the LongerTerm

Shareholders needs and objectives - there needs to be effective

communication between shareholders and the board so the board understands

shareholders needs and objectives and their views on the companys

performance.

Investor relations and communications - an effective communication

reporting framework between the board and all shareholders needs to be in

place so that shareholders views can be communicated to the board and

shareholders can understand the circumstances of and constraints on the

company.

Stakeholder and social responsibilities - companies should have a

proactive corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy as this can help create

long-term value and reduce risk for shareholders and other stakeholders.

The QCA Code includes a section on demonstrating good corporate governance,

particularly in relation to clear disclosures. Companies are advised to publish a

corporate governance statement that describes how they achieve good

governance annually. This should be published in their annual report and

accounts or, failing that, on the companys website and so that the annual report

and any separate governance related documents can be easily located, an

investors section of the website is also recommended.

The QCA Code also prescribes minimum disclosure requirements for annual

reports:

The chairmans report should detail how the QCA Guidelines are being appliedto enable long-term success;


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The number of meetings of the board and board committees and individual

directors attendance at them;

A statement outlining how the board operates to set, develop and execute the

companys strategy and an explanation of the types of decision taken by the

board and those delegated to management;

The identity of all directors, their roles and membership of board committees;

The identity of directors deemed independent, together with an explanation as

to why they are deemed independent notwithstanding factors which may

appear to impair that status;

The skills and experience of the non-executive and executive directors so that

shareholders can make an informed decision as to the balance of the board

and the appointment and reappointment of board members;

A description of the role of each board committee;

A description of board performance evaluation procedures that the board

applies, focusing on its objectives and outcomes and including a summary of

how evaluation procedures have evolved from the previous year, the results of

the evaluation and action taken or planned as a result;

A business review detailing the companys strategy and how this is

communicated to all areas of the business;

An audit committee report explaining the major tasks undertaken and

demonstrating independent oversight of management and the external

auditors;

A summary of risk management and internal control systems and activities,

and an explanation of how these relate to strategy and link into key

performance indicators, remuneration policies and CSR activities;

An explanation to shareholders of how auditor objectivity and independence is

ensured, particularly where the auditor provides significant non-audit services;

and

A remuneration committee report outlining how the companys remuneration

practices align the interests of senior management and shareholders.

In addition, the QCA Code specifies certain additional information that should be

available to shareholders on the companys website and it provides practical

examples of governance structures and the reporting of corporate governance,

linked to the 12 Guidelines. Finally, it considers the significance of the QCA Code

for the whole board, the chairman, a non-executive director, the senior

independent director, an audit committee member, a remuneration committee

member, a nomination committee member, a company secretary and

shareholders.

Copies of the QCA Code can be obtained from the QCA atwww.theqca.com
http://www.theqca.com/http://www.theqca.com/http://www.theqca.com/http://www.theqca.com/


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Appendix 4:

Summary: QCA Proposals

Investor enablement: Participation in primary market activity is currently

restricted almost entirely to institutional investors. While this is a direct result of

the regulatory landscape, we believe that far more could be done to facilitate

participation by certain categories of private investors. In particular, we believe

that web-based technology is sufficiently advanced to allow companies to

approach such investors directly, thus utilizing all the regulatory exemptions

available to them. We set out more about this proposal later in this response.

Improving access to non-bank finance: It is clear from our members that

there is significant interest in further exploring the idea of a corporate bond

market for small and mid-cap issuers. In particular members have pointed out

that a market for such instruments and other forms of quasi equity, such as

preference shares, existed in the 1970s and early 1980s. We are also aware of

the greater sophistication of the PIPES market (private investment in public

equity) in the USA with debt and quasi equity in smaller listed companie s being

far more common there.

Greater transparency: The effect of the current regulatory system is that those

who need the most information get the least. In the absence of reliable

information, many investors do not remain inert, but base investment decisions

on supposition and conjecture. In particular the changes in the rules on the

distribution of investment research following the implementation of MiFID in

November 2007 have led to a dearth of independent research on small and mid-

cap companies. We believe that a systematic approach to independent research -

which is available to all - is needed.

Incentivising investors and stakeholders: We would like to see a

comprehensive review of the UKs approach to encouraging entrepreneurial

behaviour. In particular we would like to see the EIS and VCT schemes remodeled

with a specific purpose in mind the creation of jobs. We would like to see the

schemes widened. We believe that discouraging investee companies from taking

on employees because they would break an arbitrary limit on employee numbers

is currently counterproductive. In addition we believe that the sectoral scope of

the schemes should ensure that jobs in hospitality, leisure and service industries

are every bit as valuable as jobs in hi-tech and bio-tech.

Appendix 5:

The Approach of Selected US States to Angel Investing:

Hawaii has the most generous tax credit that grants a 100 percent of the

investment made, with a $2 million cap per businessper year and no total cap.

Wisconsin was noted in the NGA report, as it has a particularly good method for

attracting, vetting, and selecting applicants.

A brief examination of local motivations is revealing:


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Traditionally, tourism, real estate, and agriculture have driven the Hawaiian

economy, and Hawaiis leaders were interested in diversifying. Hawaiis remote

location and high cost of living create a difficult climate to attract new business.

At the turn of the millennium, Hawaiis state leaders began taking steps to attract

new knowledge-based industries and began passing economic incentive acts. The

Tax Director at the time, Ray Kamikawa, has been a driving force and could be a

source of expertise in managing the pitfalls for the U.K. Treasury.

From 1999 to 2005, tax credits claimed totalled $195.6 million, whilst related

investments received totalled $821.6 million, a significant injection to the

Hawaiian economy. Hawaii is a unique state, and this bold state incentive takes

into account Hawaiis remoteness.

There might be lessons in this for comparable areas of the U.K. remote, tourist

dependant and economically deprived Cornwall springs to mind.

Kansasis generally seen as a flyover state. However, through the leadership of

the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation (KTEC), Kansas is increasingly a

home for promoting technology-based economic development, particularly in

biotechnology.

As a private entity, KTEC directs its energies towards all high technology start

ups, which allows it to cross many boundaries. It is able to partner with four

universities and the two major angel networks in Kansas. As a public entity, KTEC

receives funding from the state lottery and has a responsibility to approve

businesses and investors for the Kansas Angel Investor Tax Act passed in 2004.

The Angel Investor Tax Credit began in January of 2005. In just the first 45 daysof the tax credit, the state awarded the entire $2 million appropriated by the

legislature. After this whirlwind of activity, KTEC soon realised that it would need

to adjust the process

Subsequently, the programmes processes have evolved so that the government

has given KTEC the authority to evaluate projects on a more rigorous and detailed

basis. Today, KTEC examines the business plan and financials, scores the deals,

and then reserves tax credits, following a two-week evaluation cycle.

Like many other state angel tax credits, it is targeted to high-growth, high-

technological business plans. The annual credit limit has also been raised twice

since the 2005 debut, finally rising to a total of $6 million for 2008, which is

projected to stay constant until 2016. One other change that took effect was that

investors can carry the credit forward indefinitely.

Since 2005, entrepreneurial projects have raised twelve times the capital that

was granted in tax credits.

One of Kansas programme strengths is that it works in conjunction with all of the

angel organisations in the state. The angel groups share due diligence with the

others, sending deals back and forth across the state. Not only does this help

KTEC know what deals are being presented, it is easier for the entrepreneur to

access capital and to communicate with more potentially interested parties. Inthis respect, angel networks are not competing with each other for projects, and


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it does not matter who talked to the entrepreneur first, because eventually he or

she will be referred to everybody.

Plus, due diligence only has to be done once. KTEC believes that this system of

communication and transparency is a big part of why companies are able to raisecapital in Kansas.

One wonders how such a programme would affect similar by-passed and deprived

areas of the U.K., say, Lincolnshire?

The Wisconsin experience may have particular resonance for the U.K. as a

whole. When Governor Jim Doyle took office in 2003, he focused on an economic

development plan under the banner Grow Wisconsin. But in attempting to

balance the budget, Wisconsin did not have the latitude to commit huge dollars.

The leadership agreed, therefore, to a $3 million annual limit in angel tax credits,

based on a 25 percent credit of the individual investment made. As with mostinvestment incentive programmes, these credits target businesses that are in the

high growth, high-tech and bioscience fields.

There are two major organisations involved in the programme. The public entity

is the Department of Commerce, which approves the businesses that qualify for

the tax credit and administers the tax credit to the investors.

The private entity is the Wisconsin Angel Network (WAN), under the Wisconsin

Technology Council, a non-profit entity which is not a part of government.

The WAN mission is to provide educational opportunities for angel investors, to

enhance the deal-flow pipeline, to provide aid to forming angel networks, tomeasure results, to communicate, and to provide any other support in the service

of angel networks.

WAN does not have money of its own to invest; rather, it focuses on arranging

conferences and networking opportunities on many levels. The programme is

designed so that t

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