As you would expect, the senior management team at Maven has been closely monitoring the situation around the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is continuing to evolve rapidly. Maven has already taken a wide range of preventative actions aimed at protecting the health and safety of its staff, investee companies and business contacts. In keeping with wider moves by business and government, Maven is also applying travel restrictions and ensuring social distancing for staff, such that all non-essential meetings will be conducted by video and conference calls. A similar approach is being adopted by many of our portfolio companies and their advisers.
Continuing to support UK business
This is a time of considerable uncertainty for UK businesses, exacerbated by volatility in global financial markets. Maven intends to do as much as it practically can to help guide and assist investors, portfolio companies and advisers through this difficult time. The Maven team has many years’ experience of working across a diverse range of industries and sectors, including during challenging economic periods, and is already working closely with those portfolio companies which have been most affected by this global health crisis.
Maven offers a range of flexible funding options for companies, including growth capital, regional debt finance and capital funding for management buy-outs. Following the closure of our most recent VCT offers for subscription, we have already completed one new private company investment this month, with several others scheduled to complete during March. Whilst we will need to be more circumspect with regard to which new companies we support in the coming months, we believe the UK remains a fundamentally attractive place to invest, and that there will be a substantial and pronounced market recovery when the impact of Covid-19 begins to subside.
Our new working patterns
Maven has a nationwide office network, supported by a large, experienced fund administration team in Glasgow, and has taken appropriate steps to ensure business continuity across all key functions of our business, including their interaction with important third party suppliers such as banks, custodians and VCT share registrar.
From this week, our UK business has migrated to a carefully co-ordinated programme of remote working, ensuring comprehensive coverage of key business areas, with full IT assistance for staff in all locations. This network and infrastructure is supported by our existing and tested business continuity plan and is enabling our team to operate as normal and avoid any unnecessary disruption to our investee companies, investors, staff or business contacts.
Whilst these measures are introducing some changes to our normal working practice, the Maven team remains at its post and continuing to service our investors, portfolio businesses and advisers.
We wish you, your families and colleagues the best of health during these difficult times and look forward to seeing you again in the near future.
Until then, we will continue to provide regular updates on our website. Please continue to contact Maven using the telephone numbers provided; all general enquiries should be directed to our Glasgow office on 0141 306 7400 or by e-mail to enquiries@mavencp.com.