This consultation paper focuses on how to ensure that young and growing small businesses have efficient access to capital. It summarises the main sources of finance for small businesses, then concentrates on the causes of market failure and the resulting finance gap that is particularly acute for potential high-growth small businesses. The paper goes on to consider how new measures and improvements to existing measures might help resolve this. In particular, it considers the scope for introducing in the UK a variant of the Small Business Investment Company programme, which has been a key driver behind the growth of US early-stage equity finance.
The Government welcomes responses to the issues and questions raised in this paper by 25th July 2003 and should be sent to:
Bridging the Finance Gap Consultation Responses
Investment and SME Finance Directorate
Small Business Service
St Mary's House
c/o Moorfoot
Sheffield
S1 4PQ
Tel: 0114 259 7325
Fax: 0114 259 5197
E-mail: enterprise@sbs.gsi.gov.uk
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