ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the major points revealed by the case studies of the National Enterprise Board (NEB) and aims to evaluate several specific matters about the Board disclosed. Only a handful of the companies covered in the case studies could have received bank funding in the absence of an NEB presence. Contrary to the general assumption about the behaviour of public institutions, the NEB did not require the firms it was considering for aid to file with it an excessive amount of paperwork. The NEB behaved like other venture capitalists in usually eschewing participation in the ‘substantive’ management of its companies, i.e. in their day-to-day decisions and their mid- and long-range policy making. The NEB representative at Harlan helped the company withstand Board pressure to achieve short-term profits at the expense of long-term results. The Board had one or more non-executive directors on the boards of directors of many of the companies in which it had an equity share.
