Successful SME investment strategy is given fresh firepower
Panoramic Growth Equity (“Panoramic”), the leading provider of investment to smaller businesses that are focussed on management buyouts and growth, today announced the final close of Panoramic Growth Fund 2. This fund was 30% oversubscribed at £65m. All investors from Fund 1 have reinvested alongside a number of new institutional investors.
Panoramic’s second fund will invest between £1m and £5m in businesses from a range of sectors, with a turnover of more than £1m and the appetite for growth or ownership change. Primarily with the support of institutional capital, the fund has the flexibility to invest in a wide range of situations including development capital, cash out/replacement capital and management buy-ins/buyouts.
The fund has already invested £2.2m as part of the January buy-in management buyout (BIMBO) of Precision Technologies International Limited, a Midlands based precision engineering business.
The new fund is a continuation of a successful investment strategy that has seen Panoramic’s first fund invest in 9 businesses and achieve 3 successful exits with a market leading IRR from these of over 70%, in five years. Over this period, Panoramic backed companies have achieved: revenue growth of 141%; a five fold profit increase; a 95% increase in employees; successful expansion into 6 new territories (France, Ukraine, Germany, US, Singapore, Indonesia); and, over 20 industry awards. The new fund will be focussed on growth SMEs in the UK with a particular focus on management buyouts, a market that has changed in favour of Panoramic in recent months with changes to the VCT legislation.
Panoramic was founded by Stephen Campbell, David Wilson and Malcolm Kpedekpo in 2009 and closed its first fund, Panoramic Enterprise Capital Fund 1, at £34m.
Commenting on the fund close, Stephen Campbell, Partner at Panoramic Growth Equity, said: “Our success in closing our second fund at £65m is a vote of confidence on the part of our investors and a direct result of having successfully backed a number of exceptional businesses in our first five years. We are excited about the potential for our second fund as it offers more flexibility in the types of transactions that we can undertake and funds that we can deploy. As the market for development and particularly buyout capital for SMEs continues to tighten due to the legislation changes, Panoramic is now strongly placed to maintain its position as one of the leading investors in UK smaller company market.”