ABSTRACT
The National Enterprise Board (NEB) financing of Powerdrive’s management buyout helped make private funds less reluctant to buttress genre of transaction. It often replaced poor with competent leadership – Pet, Ferranti, British Leyland and Fairey are the best examples. It forced others of its firms to better their management techniques. As a preliminary to deciding whether the United Kingdom (UK) should revitalise the NEB or create a new agency with powers similar to those possessed by the Board in its glory days. One can make a weighty argument to the effect that the UK needs no state venture capitalist at present. When the NEB came into being in 1975, Finance For Industry, acting through its Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation division, was the only British private sector venture capitalist that would provide help to firms that for one reason or another could not raise money elsewhere.
