Nicola Horlick, who featured in ACQ Magazine’s October issue, is launching a business aimed at making it easier for wealthy individuals to make private equity investments.
Horlick’s Rockpool Investments is being launched with two former 3i Group executives and will try to capitalise on recent regulatory changes in the UK designed to encourage greater investment in small and medium-sized enterprises.
Rockpool will seek to exploit the growing demand for individual investments in SMEs as bank financing becomes harder to come by.
Under changes to the UK’s Enterprise Investment Scheme, individuals can now reclaim more of the cost of investments in SMEs against income tax, while the number of eligible companies — and the amount they can raise in any one year — has increased.
Rockpool will seek to sign up rich private investors to its network happy to invest a minimum of 25,000 pounds per deal. The business will focus on deals requiring between 2 and 10 million pounds of equity.
Horlick will take on the role of Chairman at Rockpool, with Gary Robins, formerly chief executive of Hotbed and Matt Taylor, a former partner at Foresight Group, jointly managing the business.
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