An Eligible Investor must also qualify as a Private Investor to be eligible for matched funding from the Future Fund. Please see the Glossary for details of these defined terms. In broad terms, “Private Investor” is defined as “a person, company or fund who is not connected with an Investee Company… or with a connected person of the Investee Company…”.
“Connected persons” are defined using the definitions set out in sections 1122 – 1123 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 (and by inference, sections 450–451, but excluding section 450(3) (c) and (d)), which amount to a concept of majority control defined by reference to ownership of the majority of shares in issue or control over the majority of voting rights.
These criteria apply to funds under the Future Fund eligibility rules. Whilst in different contexts and for different purposes a fund may not be a legal person and/or a fund may be considered to be a transparent look through entity, for the purposes of the Future Fund eligibility rules, all funds managed or advised by a single discretionary manager are considered to be a single investor regardless of their legal form. For this reason, multiple funds that are managed or advised by the same discretionary manager are also considered to be acting as a single investor.
The Future Fund is designed so that public investment is matched with investors who are not currently majority owners (and/or decision makers) of businesses. This is to ensure commercial outcomes for state aid and policy reasons, and to minimise the risk of conflicting interests.