LLOYDS Banking Group has pulled its investment in Scottish angel investment firm Braveheart, it emerged yesterday.
Perth-based Braveheart revealed in a regulatory news announcement to the London Stock Exchange that Uberior Investments, which is directly owned by Lloyds, and collapsed Kenmore Private Equity, to which Lloyds was a significant lender, had sold their collective 26% stake in the company.
Uberior Investments, which held 9.07% of Braveheart, had been inherited via the 2008 HBOS takeover and had previously been the Bank of Scotland’s private equity arm.
A spokesman for Lloyds yesterday confirmed it had sold its stake in Braveheart, but declined to reveal the price at which the shareholding was sold.
However, at yesterday’s closing share price of 23.5p, Uberior’s stake was worth £314,526. Asked about the reason for the sale, a Lloyds spokesman said: “We keep things under review.”
Meanwhile, although Kenmore Private Equity is not directly owned by Lloyds, the former property development and investment empire of John Kennedy, collapsed in 2009 with debts and investments of more than £700 million, much of it chalked up on the Lloyds loanbook.
As a creditor, a substantial chunk of Kenmore Private Equity’s 16.95% stake, valued at about £5,875,000, will likely end up back with Lloyds
Braveheart yesterday said the stakes – previously owned Kenmore and Uberior, along with 15% of Braveheart chief executive Geoffrey Thomson’s shareholding – had now been placed with new investors. At the same time yesterday, Braveheart said it had raised around £950,000 through a placing of some 4.1 million new shares.
The investment company said it will use the new cash as working capital and to further investment in its “portfolio of high-growth businesses”. The new shares are expected to begin trading on the junior Alternative Investment Market today.
Mr Thomson said: “Since our IPO in 2007 we have been doing two things. First, we have been building our directly held investment portfolio both by acquisition and by direct investment.
“Secondly, and more latterly, we have been developing our fee generating business
“This placing ... gives us new capital to continue our business development and it resolves the issue of liquidity by bringing in new investors.”
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