ABSTRACT
This chapter provides case studies of the relationships prevailing between the National Enterprise Board (NEB) and quite a few of the undertakings to which it provided venture capital. The case studies will reveal, too, how frequently the Board acted like many other venture capitalists and revamped the management or the accounting techniques of its investments. The Board worked with a brokerage house to find two private institutional investors to join in the buyout: a deal was arranged whereby the Board and these two private firms took equal shares in Bruce. The NEB never vetoed any of Able’s proposed transactions; though it eyed with suspicion its purchase of a building. The NEB approached Able for purposes of investment because it wanted to expand the application of microcomputer technology in the UK. Elspeth Company had to submit reports and plans to the NEB, which had one representative on its Board of Directors.
