Thought Leadership

UK Private Capital’s Senior Policy Manager for Pensions, Karen Hurst, provides her insights on the passage of the Pensions Schemes Bill, following a long period of ‘ping-pong’ between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Karen discusses compromises made to the mandation power, and positive changes to scale requirements and a value for money framework that UK Private Capital has long called for.

Laura Callaghan, Head of Advisory, EMEA at Novata outlines the importance of using the sustainability data firms collect to quantify impact and demonstrate value across their portfolios. Laura highlights the need to integrate sustainability insights into value creation plans and outlines the pitfalls firms often encounter when attempting to communicate their value.

Harry Raikes, Head of UK Venture Investments at Schroders discusses the building momentum for UK pension reform over the last decade. Harry describes how the UK’s push to channel pension capital into high-growth companies is gaining traction, with early allocations to venture capital signalling a shift from policy ambition to practical implementation.

Given how under-invested UK pension funds are in private capital, this is a huge opportunity. With 16 times as much international pension capital invested in UK private capital funds compared to indigenous capital, this reform matters.

James Thompson, Managing Director, Sustainability and ESG Advisory at CFGI discusses the difficulties in demonstrating the value in Sustainability and provides insight into the underlying reasons for this challenge. 

Leandros Kalisperas, Chief Investment Officer at the British Business Bank, sets out how the Bank is evolving its investment approach to support the next phase of growth in the UK venture and growth ecosystem.

Amber Heuvelmans, Associate Director, ESG Advisory at ACA Group provides practical guidance for how Private Market Managers can explore how artificial intelligence can support ESG analysis, reporting, and portfolio oversight.

On 4 March, ICG hosted and sponsored an International Women’s Day reception in their London office, as part of UK Private Capital’s Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) series. Suzi Gillespie, UK Private Capital’s Head of Research, reflects on the conversation and how private capital businesses can build inclusive workplaces.

Right now there is an important debate underway in the UK about risk and our appetite for it. The government a year ago challenged all the regulators to demonstrate that they were focused on supporting economic growth by introducing ‘secondary objectives’ to guide their efforts.