Report

Angels’ delights

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities argues that geographic differences in equity investment reflects differences in the number of investable firms.

Equity investment is at the heart of the Industrial Strategy, and it is predominantly urban. Over 80 per cent of equity deals and values are for businesses in cities.

A few cities stand out – by deal numbers, London is 51 per cent of the national equity market, the nine large cities outside of London 12 per cent, and Oxford and Cambridge together a further 6 per cent. But large cities underperform on equity value. The value of equity deals is more concentrated than the number of deals.

London secures 62 per cent of the country’s equity deal values, the large cities 6 per cent, and Oxford and Cambridge together 7 per cent. Much of the geographic variation in equity deals reflects where investable small firms are located. Once this is accounted for, the variation in deal number is much smaller.