The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund Roadshow

Leeds Armouries

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Jane Lambert

Hours after returning from Estonia, I drove to Leeds to attend the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II Roadshow at the Royal Armouries Museum. Readers will be aware of my interest in this fund from my articles Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II of 4 April 2024, Innovate UK Regional Investment Spotlight – Liverpool of 6 July 2024 and Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II - Meeting the Funders of 14 July 2024 in NIPC Northwest and Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund's First Investment in Yorkshire of 19 July 2024 in NIPC Yorkshire.

The roadshow consisted of an introduction to and overview of the Fund by the British Business Bank, presentations by the Business Enterprise Fund and Mercia Asset Management and questions and answers to a panel consisting of representatives of the funding institutions.   

I asked two questions.   

The first arising from the government's announcement that funding to local enterprise partnerships had ceased in April 2024 which I mentioned in The End of LEPs in NIPC News on 8 Aug 2024 was how well local authorities were coping with their business advice and support tasks that the LEPs had performed since 2010 and Business Link before then.  I was encouraged and not a little surprised to learn that the institutions had found the transition from LEPs to elected authorities had gone well.  My experience had been more patchy.  I delivered a 90-minute introduction to IP law to staff at the London Boroughs Legal Alliance on 1 Oct 2024 which seemed to go down very well.  On the other hand I shared the slides and offered to repeat the talk to staff members of my own mayoral authority but have not yet received a response.

My other question was prompted by a response that I had been given at the Innovate UK Regional Investment Spotlight in Liverpool.   I had asked about going public and was told that the Alterbatve Investment Market or indeed any kind of stock market flotation was no longer available to successful scale-ups.  I did not understand the answer so I asked the Mercia fund managers for their experience.  Several said that they had clients who had made successful initial public offerings.

The event concluded with networking over hot drinks and pastries,   It was good to see Colin Glass of WGN Business Advisers and Stephen Waud, Chief Executive of the Business Enterprise Fund for the first time in years.  I also met Peter Sorsby, Investment Director of Mercia Asset Management.   

Altogether, it was a good day out of chambers.   Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

Meet our IP Attaché to China

Author Ssolbergj
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International Licence
Source Wikipedia

Jane Lambert

Mr Tom Duke is our IP Attaché to China. His job is to build relations with the Chinese government to understand and actively engage with IP policy makers in that country.  He is part of a network of British IP attachés in Brazil, India and South East Asia which has significantly increased the level of support available for UK businesses operating in those markets. Based in the British Embassy in Beijing he supports over 200 companies each year on IP strategies and on dealing with problems such as infringement whenever they arise.

Every year Mr Duke and his colleagues hold a series of business outreach events across the UK called the “China IP Roadshow” with the aim of raising awareness of protecting IP in China amongst (potential) UK exporters and companies involved in other types of business/innovation collaborations with Chinese partners. This year they plan to visit Yorkshire as well as Scotland, Liverpool, Manchester and London.

Mr Duke will be in Yorkshire on 19 Sept 2017 and plans to speak in Leeds morning and Barnsley in the afternoon.  His talk in Leeds will take place in the boardroom of Northern Ballet and the provisional programme is as follows:

09:30 -  10:00	Registration and networking
10:00 - 10:30	Tom Duke, British Embassy Beijing/UK Intellectual Property Office “Succeeding in China – How to mitigate IP risk”
10:30 - 11:30	Other presentations, questions and answer and discussions
11:30 - 12:00	One to one meetings (please request at time of registration)

The Barnsley meeting will take place at the Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre and will follow a similar format:

14:30 -  15:00	Registration and networking
15:00 - 15:30	Tom Duke, British Embassy Beijing/UK Intellectual Property Office “Succeeding in China – How to mitigate IP risk”
15:30 - 16:00	Questions and answer and discussions
16:00 - 16: 30	One to one meetings (please request at time of registration)

According to the WIPO China has a population of 1,371 million and a GDP of US $18,374.71 which is even bigger than that of the USA in terms of purchasing power parity, In 2015 there were nearly a million applications to the SIPO for patents for Chinese inventions. That is more than the applications made to their national patent office by the inventors of any other country. China is an important innovator and shares our national interest in ensuring proper protection for brands, designs, inventions and creative works around the world.

Mr Duke will tell you all about registration of patents, designs and trade marks in China and Hong Kong, licensing and joint ventures and enforcement through the courts and tribunals. As the new Business and Property Courts will launch in Leeds and other major cities I will tell you all about your contractual and IP rights, remedies and liabilities in respect of your dealings with Chinese partners here.

Space is limited at both venues and demand is likely to be heavy. If you want to be sure of your place, call Steve on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 and ask to reserve a place at either venue or send me a message through my contact form.

Screen Yorkshire Roadshow: £15m for TV, film, games and digital sectors

On Wednesday I received an email from Hull Digital about a talk to be given by Screen Yorkshire on a new £15m content fund for TV, film, games and digital sectors at the World Trade Centre in Hull. I have since discovered that was a stop on a roadshow by Chief Executive Sally Joynson and Head of Production Hugo Heppell.   It has already visited Bradford and Barnsley and will be at the Workstation Sheffield today.  It will also go to York on 8 May, Huddersfield on the 14 and Leeds on the 31. The talk is free and bookings are made through Eventrbrite.

The World Trade Centre in Hull is not quite the same landmark as its namesake had been in New York.  Not everybody in that city has heard of it and none of those who have had a clear idea of where it was. I drove to the address in Queen Street on the Eventrbrite print out only to be re-directed by the signposts and passers by to a desolate looking office block that would not have looked out of place in the German Democratic Republic known as "Humber Quays." Once I had penetrated the security of Humber Quays I was told by the porter that the WTC had been there but had moved out but neither he nor anyone else in that Lubyanka quite knew where.  Hull city centre is bisected by a dual carriageway so a journey of a few hundred yards from one end of the waterfront to another can take quite a long time - especially in the middle of the afternoon,   Once I had found my way back to Queen Street, I parked on a bit of waste ground that proclaimed itself as a car park only by its ticket machine and proceeded on heels past every building in the street - many of which were unoccupied - until I eventually found the modest façade of the WTC.  As a result of this perambulation I missed Sally's presentation altogether and caught only the last few slides of Hugo's.

However, the event was still well worth attending.   Screen Yorkshire is now the only regional agency to support film, television or interactive media in its area and it has done some very good work. Recent productions include Wuthering Heights, This is England 86 and  Red Riding.  Like everything else, public funding for film and TV has been cut since the change of government.   Save for the regional growth fund and Broadband Delivery UK there has been very little public money for anything.  So when I received Hull Digital's email about this £15 million cornucopia, my ears pricked up

Half of the money comes from Europe - more specifically the European Regional Development Fund channelled through the Department of Communities and Local Government - while the other half will come from unspecified other sources.   The scheme is known as the Yorkshire Content Fund and its object is "to address a gap in the market place by providing targeted co-investment finance into companies based in Yorkshire and the Humber producing creative content projects, and to develop innovative approaches to further investment in the digital and new media sector."   Funds under the scheme will be investments and not grants.   Those investments will be made in projects and companies across the whole range of digital media activity including film and television production, videogames, mobile content and ‘apps’, web-based and digital media products. However projects must be initiated by Yorkshire-based companies or by SMEs attracted into or started up in the county.  Further information on the scheme is available from an "Overview"  and expressions of interest can be registered through the following form.

After the presentation I asked Hugo whether funding under the scheme would take the form of a loan or equity investment. He replied that it would be neither but "quasi-equity".  When I pressed him as to what he meant by "quasi equity" he replied that it would be "a charge over the intellectual property".  As he had told someone else that Screen Yorkshire would retain a stake in a licensable character until it had been bought out, I asked Hugo whether that would mean that Screen Yorkshire would expect an assignment of copyrights or rights over performances to which he replied that it would mean that Screen Yorkshire would take a charge over the revenues.  

It is clear that anybody thinking of taking advantage of this scheme whether as a content producer (film maker, developer or otherwise) or as an investor - will require specialist professional advice.   If anyone wants to discuss it with me further, he or she can contact me through my contact form, Facebook, Linkedin, Xing or twitter or call me on 0113 320 3232 .