Creating Value. In this issue. 05/ Maven VCT Top-up Offers. The Newsletter of Maven Capital Partners

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1 Issue 07 / Autumn 2012 Creating Value The Newsletter of Maven Capital Partners In this issue 05/ Maven VCT Top-up Offers 02/ Foreword 03/ New Investments 04/ Recent Exits 05/ Appointments 06/ Scottish Loan Fund 07/ Stay Connected

2 Welcome to the autumn edition of the new look Maven Capital Partners newsletter, Creating Value. The traditional VCT season is almost upon us and a number of Maven VCTs will once again be offering an opportunity to invest in similar top-up offers to those which proved extremely popular last year and subsequently closed early, having been fully subscribed by the end of February. Maven s VCT top-up offers provide investors with immediate access to mature portfolios and an established dividend history, whilst providing additional funds for the VCTs to make further later-stage private company investments on behalf of all shareholders. Since the previous offers closed, investors have seen exits from ATR, Nessco and Transys (two of which are featured in this issue) which were all achieved at a healthy multiple of cost and realised significant shareholder returns. During the holding period Maven executives provided valuable support to each management team, across a range of business disciplines, with the common goal of creating value and delivering superior returns at exit. The sale of established portfolio companies is usually tinged with mixed emotions. These assets may have become reliable sources of income to the VCTs which hold the investment, and in a number of cases the exit is to an overseas trade buyer, meaning that a UK business moves into foreign ownership. However, these sales release capital to deploy in the next generation of growth companies. This allows Maven to continue the virtuous cycle of investing, divesting and reinvesting in successful privately owned UK companies, in support of a committed agenda to provide our VCT shareholders with best-in-class returns, both by way of capital growth and attractive levels of tax-free income. Within this edition of Creating Value we feature the new investment in CatTech International, an established business which has many blue chip clients in the oil and petrochemical sectors. By supporting this acquisition we were able to counter the trend of overseas ownership, buying the business from a large US corporate which had chosen to exit the European market. Also featured in this issue are details of a number of independent industry awards and nominations for Maven and its VCTs, and the appointment of two new investment executives to our team. Finally we profile four new investments made by the Scottish Loan Fund, which is managed by Maven outside our mainstream VCT business and was established to deploy capital in growth and export focused SMEs. Thank you for investing with Maven. Bill Nixon Managing Partner 02

3 Maven leads MBO in energy services business CatTech In March Maven VCTs provided a 3 million funding package in support of the MBO of CatTech International from US environmental services business Clean Harbors Inc. Operating from offices in UK, Bulgaria, Sweden, China, Singapore and Thailand, CatTech is a leading provider of industrial services to oil refineries and petrochemical plants across several major international markets. The company specialises in servicing equipment containing chemical reaction catalysts. It also focuses on introducing processes to improve catalyst handling operations where the ability to maintain operational efficiency is critical and there is an increasing focus on health and safety issues. CatTech operates in a sector with significant barriers to entry due to the limited number of specialist operators world-wide that have the skilled personnel and equipment to undertake catalyst handling projects. The business is well positioned for future growth as the demand for oil and petroleum based products continues to increase. The requirement for advanced planning of major plant maintenance programmes means that the company has very significant revenue visibility through a number of major contracts with blue chip clients such as BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Esso and CSPC Petroleum. Maven has invested in a business which already enjoys an established market presence and an excellent reputation as an innovator, having developed a range of patented products. The current senior team has successfully grown CatTech over the past four years and intends to drive further expansion through the development of its range of services and selective acquisitions, with a number of potential targets already identified. The team has been further enhanced by the appointment of a high quality chairman and a new general manager. We are delighted to have completed the MBO of CatTech, and are confident that Maven s investment will help us achieve our growth plans. We look forward to working with Maven, which shares our ambitions and offers valuable experience of investment in high growth businesses and the oil refining and petrochemical sector. Karl Thew, Managing Director 03

4 Maven has completed the exit from Nessco Group via a 31 million sale to RigNet Inc., a NASDAQ quoted US telecoms business. The sale generated a 3.7x return on the original investment made by Maven managed VCTs. Nessco has seen exceptional growth since Maven s original investment in June 2008, with an increase in annual revenues to over 30 million and earnings growing by over 200% to 3.5 million over the same period. Nessco is a market leading provider of telecommunications services to the global energy and industrial sectors, including the design, installation, commission and maintenance of communications solutions, VSAT networks, and mobile communications products for sale or hire. The energy services sector continues to attract entrepreneurial businesses and is a key area of expertise for Maven. Our Aberdeen based team, led by Partner Jock Gardiner, has a leading presence in the sector and since 2007 has led 12 energy services related transactions, including four profitable realisations generating sale multiples ranging from 1.7x to 3.7x cost. Maven makes 3.7x return from Nessco exit Maven achieves profitable exit from Transys In June Maven completed the profitable sale of its investment in Transys Projects Limited to the German engineering company Vossloh Kiepe, which is part of MDAX listed Vossloh AG. Birmingham-based Transys provides turnkey and engineering consulting solutions relating to the maintenance and enhancement of rail rolling stock. Maven VCT clients funded the original MBO in April 2002, and over recent years the company has significantly extended its engineering proposition and developed important client relationships across UK and international markets. This sale allows Transys to explore new and larger market opportunities as part of an international engineering group, supported by the financial strength and technical expertise of Vossloh. The dedication and effort of the Transys management team, alongside strategic and business support provided by a senior Maven executive throughout the life of the investment, has helped establish the company as a highly regarded operator in the UK rail engineering market. Transys was the largest holding of Maven Income and Growth VCT PLC, the longest established Maven VCT, and the materiality of the disposal was such that it required a stock exchange announcement given the positive impact of this transaction on net asset value. 04

5 New VCT Top-up Offers from Maven Appointments Following the successful early close of the 2011/2012 VCT offers in February, Maven will shortly be announcing the launch of new top-up offers. After almost four years of historically low interest rates, UK investors continue to look for alternative sources of tax-efficient income and there is clear appetite for the income producing characteristics of generalist VCTs. Maven is one of the most successful generalist VCT managers, with an investment focus on cash generative, later-stage private companies. Four of the Maven Income and Growth VCTs have completed top-up offers in each of the past three VCT seasons, and by September 2012 an investor in all three of those offers will have received more than 20 separate tax-free dividend payments in less than three years. If you are interested in hearing more about the forthcoming offers please contact us on or to request, in advance, a copy of the offers document. In May we appointed Ben Bolt as Investment Director. He works alongside Maven Partner Andrew Ferguson in Maven s Midlands and Southern England team, and is based out of the Birmingham and London offices. Ben has built up extensive experience of investing in UK businesses over the course of a 15 year career in Corporate Finance. For the past three years he has been an Investment Director with Catapult Venture Managers, and prior to that held a similar role at Kaupthing. Earlier in his career he worked at Deloitte, qualifying as an ACA and advising on M&A and private equity deals. Maven s award winning team In August this year Maven was announced as UK Small Buyout House of the Year in the 2012 ACQ Finance Magazine Global Awards, which aim to recognise experience, skills and performance demonstrated by managers across UK and international markets during the most difficult period that the global economy has experienced for decades. Maven has also recently been short-listed in two categories for the 2012 unquote British Private Equity Awards, which acknowledge innovation and excellence in the private equity and venture capital sectors. The 3x exit from Walker Technical Resources in 2011 has been nominated for VCT Exit of the Year, and Maven is featured in the VCT House of the Year category which reflects the ability of a manager to achieve consistently high standards. And finally, Maven has been nominated for VCT Manager of the Year as part of the Investor AllStars 2012 awards, which focus on all-round professional excellence in the European venture capital and private equity sector, and Maven Income and Growth VCT and Maven Income and Growth VCT 2 have been announced as VCT finalists in Investment Week s annual Investment Company of the Year Awards, an investment industry event focused on close-ended fund management. In July Maven appointed Alan Robertson as Investment Manager, with responsibility for Scottish Loan Fund investments as well as supporting new private equity transactions across Scotland. Alan joined Maven from Quayle Munro, where he helped establish a Debt Advisory and Corporate Finance business in Scotland. Prior to this Alan spent seven years with RBS, predominantly working in the Aberdeen Structured Finance team on mid-market private equity transactions. He latterly had responsibility for a portfolio of large corporate and leveraged clients. Alan is a qualified Chartered Accountant. 05

6 Scottish Loan Fund Four Scottish businesses attract over 9 million from the Scottish Loan Fund In July 2012 John Swinney, Finance Secretary for the Scottish Government, announced that a further four businesses were benefitting from 5 million of funding from the Scottish Loan Fund (SLF), with the option to drawdown a further 4 million of committed funds. The four companies receiving support from the SLF are Booth Welsh Automation, Red Spider Technology, ROVOP and GOT Services. The SLF was established by the Scottish Investment Bank (a division of Scottish Enterprise) to specifically help address the funding gap in the SME market. The fund has recently received additional private sector commitments taking the total fund size to 113 million. Managed by Maven Capital Partners, the SLF offers finance of between 250,000 and 5 million to Scottish-based growth and/or export businesses. A total of 15 million has now been committed to ambitious Scottish companies. The SLF is providing working capital to Northeast based Red Spider Technology which manufactures and supplies a unique range of remotely operated well-intervention and completion tools to the international oil & gas industry. The company has been working in recent years to increase its international trade with a focus on Europe and Asia. Ayrshire-based engineering services firm Booth Welsh Automation has also secured funding to help deliver its next phase of growth. The business employs over 150 people at its Stevenston base and SLF investment will be used to provide additional working capital to help fund the forecast growth in new contracts. Another successful business benefitting from SLF funding is ROVOP, an independent specialist operator of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) servicing the offshore oil & gas and renewable sectors. The business is seeing a high level of enquiries and tender opportunities, and SLF funding will provide valuable finance for the acquisition of additional ROVs to be used in fulfilling long term contracts recently secured with major international marine contractors. Finally, Aberdeen-based GOT Services accessed SLF finance to help it move into new larger premises. The business, which is a market leader in the sourcing and supply of oilfield equipment, specialises in the provision of comprehensive procurement packages tailored to individual client needs. The move to new premises will enable GOT to achieve its three year growth plan by increasing warehouse space and employee headcount. I am encouraged to see that an additional four businesses are benefiting from the Loan Fund. We will continue to assist innovative, high growth firms as part of our drive to build sustainable economic growth for Scotland. John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance For further information on SLF and its lending criteria please call or alternatively slfenquiries@mavencp.com Red Spider Technology Booth Welsh Automation ROVOP GOT Services 06

7 Stay connected with Maven Meet the Manager events Maven continues to place great value on shareholder communications and is always keen to receive feedback which will help to identify ways to improve the service to VCT investors. Following the success of the Meet the Manager events in 2011, Maven is once again planning a series of meetings across the country in early November. The format of the meetings will be similar to last year with an informal buffet lunch followed by a short presentation, which allows us to cover issues around the VCT environment in general and the real value that VCTs can bring to a broadly-based investment portfolio. Meetings are scheduled to be held in London, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow, although the dates and venues may change to reflect overall demand. In order to register an interest in attending and reserve a place at a Meet the Manager event please enquiries@mavencp.com with your name, address and preferred city or region. VCT news by A significant number of shareholders have enquired about the possibility of receiving newsletters and new investment information by in order to reduce the volume of paper communications they need to handle. If you would like to receive information via , please contact enquiries@mavencp.com with your address. Access to shareholder information For your protection Capita Registrars can only provide information about your shareholding directly to you, unless your adviser has provided written authority to obtain information on your behalf. Alternatively you can call the shareholder helpline on * or register for the share portal at where you can manage your shareholding online at any time. * Calls cost 10p per minute plus network extras and lines are open from 8.30am until 5.30pm, Monday to Friday. shareportal Find & Follow Investors can now stay up-to-date with Maven in real-time. If you want to be one of the first to hear about new investments, portfolio exits or any VCT news then it is only a click away. Find and follow Maven on Linkedin and Twitter. 07

8 Creating Value National contacts Managing Partner Glasgow London Aberdeen Manchester Edinburgh Bill Nixon Andrew Craig Gemma Hamilton Julie Glenny Richard Elliott Bill Kennedy Stella Panu Kimberly Martin Dale Bellis Jock Gardiner Ewan MacKinnon Kieran Good Ryan Bevington Jonty Hall David Milroy Alan Robertson Birmingham Portfolio Press & Media Business Support VCT Share Registrar Andrew Ferguson Ben Bolt Mike Collis Andrew Symmonds Steve Marshall Steven Ford Nick Marsh Suzanne Lupton Elaine Robson Capita Registrars * * Calls to Capita cost 10p per minute plus network extras. Lines are open from 8.30am until 5.30pm on Monday to Friday. Important Information Please note that Maven Capital Partners UK LLP is acting on behalf of the Maven VCTs in providing this information, and cannot give any investment, legal or taxation advice. This document is not an invitation or a recommendation to invest, and is for information purposes only. Prospective investors should regard an investment in a VCT, or directly in an unlisted company, as a long term investment which carries a higher risk than many other forms of investment. A VCT s underlying investments will normally be in unlisted companies whose securities are not publicly traded and are therefore likely to be illiquid, carrying substantially higher risk than investments in larger, listed companies. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The value of shares in a VCT or an unlisted company, and the level of income derived from them, may fall as well as rise and investors may not get back the money originally invested. We recommend that you seek independent financial advice as to whether investment in a VCT, or in unlisted companies, is suitable for you. Maven Capital Partners UK LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Registered office: Queens Chambers, 2nd Floor, 5 John Dalton Street, Manchester M2 6ET.