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British Business Bank responds to the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech

Press release 10 July 2023

At today’s Mansion House speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, announced an ambitious package of measures to unlock UK pension fund capital into productive investment.

This includes asking the British Business Bank to test proposals to build on the skills and expertise of its commercial arm, which currently has over £15 billion of capital mobilised into more than 20,000 companies, and potentially open its pipeline of growth company investment opportunities to pension funds to crowd in more investment.

Responding to the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech;

With institutional investors currently only investing a small amount in alternative assets such as venture capital, pension savers may be missing out on opportunities for better returns. The British Business Bank fully supports the Chancellor’s request to explore establishing a vehicle that could receive third party capital such as pension fund investment, making use of the Bank’s track record and market access to a range of promising high growth companies. This would need to be tested with the market to ensure sufficient appetite, so the Chancellor has asked the British Business Bank to test proposals with industry over the coming months ahead of Autumn Statement Louis Taylor CEO, British Business Bank

Mansion House Compact

In addition, the British Business Bank confirmed its support today for the Mansion House Compact, an initiative announced by the Lord Mayor of London, Nicholas Lyons. The purpose of the initiative is to encourage more long term capital into UK growth companies to improve the retirement incomes of UK savers by encouraging pension schemes to increase their allocation to unlisted equities, including venture capital and private equity, where it is in the best interest of their scheme members.

The British Business Bank supports the Mansion House Compact to enable better long-term retirement outcomes for the UK’s pension savers, which should also provide a legacy of vibrant modern companies for future generations. This is an important initiative, that has the potential to unlock billions of pounds of additional investment for the UK’s fastest growing and most innovative companies, while also enabling the UK’s pension savers to benefit from their success and boosting the UK economy. Louis Taylor CEO, British Business Bank

Notes to editors

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank’s core programmes support over £12.2 billion 1  of finance to more than 96,000 smaller businesses 2 .

As well as increasing the supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of finance options available to smaller businesses. The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to businesses about finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success.

The British Business Bank is also responsible for administering the government’s three Coronavirus loan schemes and its Future Fund, together responsible for delivering £80.4 billion in finance to 1.67 million businesses. These schemes are now closed to new applications.

British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. Wholly owned by HM government, the Bank and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. They are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at the British Business Bank.

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