LONDON: Mercia Asset Management PLC announced the British Business Bank (BBB) has allocated an additional £54.3million to Mercia’s two existing investment mandates from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF).

This takes Mercia’s total mandates from BBB to £186.3million and the Group’s total assets under management (AUM) to c.£800million.

Mercia was first awarded investment mandates from NPIF in February 2017 across two funds; the £57.5million NPIF YHTV Equity fund and the £51.0million NPIF Y&H Debt fund. Since then, Mercia has been successfully deploying these funds to support regional businesses as part of its Complete Connected Capital business model. Of the new allocations, £23.7million has been allocated to the existing equity fund and £30.6million to the existing debt fund.

Mark Payton, Chief Executive Officer of Mercia, commented: “The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund is playing an important role in helping unlock the potential of small businesses across the North of England and we are delighted to build on our successful partnership through this increased allocation across both funds. Now is a particularly critical time for regional SMEs and these new allocations will help us support both existing and new portfolio companies.

“These additional funds, alongside the £38.2million recently raised for our Northern VCTs, takes our total AUM to nearly £800million, as we continue to progress towards our target of £1.0billion AUM. It is particularly encouraging that we have made this recent progress despite the current market backdrop, which I believe reflects continuing confidence by stakeholders in Mercia’s experienced investment team and track record, including their ability to successfully source opportunities and deploy capital.”