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An internal document seen by the Financial Times shows that the UK last year accounted for 8 per cent of the bank’s equity investments, compared with 27 per cent the year before. The massive cut pushed the country out of its spot as the main recipient of EU venture funding, which is the single largest source of early-stage capital on the continent.
The report said France and Germany, which have vied eagerly to take advantage of Brexit, overtook the UK last year as the main recipients of capital from the EIB: “In the wake of Brexit, activity in the UK decreased by 69 per cent year on year, losing the top position it had maintained for years.”
It added that the top beneficiary countries included France with 19 per cent, followed by Germany (14 per cent), Italy (11 per cent) and the Netherlands (9 per cent).
“The reason the volume has gone down is not because the UK is not any longer allowed to be the recipient of investments,” said the EIB. “There is a decrease that comes as much from a decrease in demand [in the UK] as well as complexity of concluding the operations and deals because we have to deal with issues we didn’t have to deal with before because of the uncertainty from Brexit.”
The bank has not publicly admitted to halting its UK investments since the EU referendum, even though venture capital groups have reported a fall-off in funding from the bank’s public-private venture partnership, the European Investment Fund. [...]
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