Simon Walker, Chief Executive of the British Venture Capital Association, commentes on the Governments latest proposals to assist the banking sector.
The success or failure of this scheme will not be measured by what it does to the balance sheets of the banks but whether the banks now back those who want to back British business, says Walker. Venture Capital companies have been badly affected by the reluctance of some banks to show the flexibility and sensitivity needed in these times while a host of private equity investors stand ready to seek to rescue ailing and failing companies but need the banks to assist those efforts.
Private equity has a potentially huge role to play in limiting the damage of the recession but the banks must immediately deliver on their apparent promises to ministers to lend with much more imagination. If they do not, then taxpayers will witness little return on these enormous sums of money.
D.C.