Quarterlytics / Asset Management / Gresham House Strategic Plc / FY2023 Annual Report

Gresham House Strategic Plc
Annual Report 2023

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FY2023 Annual Report · Gresham House Strategic Plc
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Annual Review | For the year ended 31 December 2023

Our purpose
To deliver effective and alternative investment 
solutions to help clients achieve their financial 
objectives whilst contributing towards the transition to 
a more sustainable economy. 

About us
Gresham House is a specialist alternative asset 
manager incorporated in 1857. We provide investors 
with a range of investment products across real 
assets, public equity and private equity. Our long-term 
investment return solutions aim to meet investors’ 
long-term objectives while also positively contributing 
to society and our environment. 

We are creating an ‘asset to covet’ for shareholders, 
clients and our employees, delivering value through 
attractive financial returns alongside a focus on 
sustainability.

www.greshamhouse.com

“

Executing on our financial 
and strategic goals to grow 
value and be recognised 
as an “asset to covet” by 
all stakeholders.

Tony Dalwood
Chief Executive

Contents

Group financial and strategic highlights 

Business overview - our divisions 

Chief Executive’s report 

Strategic framework – GH30 

Our clients 

Our people and culture    

Our Corporate Sustainability Strategy 

The last year in numbers 

Investment performance 

Divisional Reviews 

Real Assets 

Strategic Equity 

Risk Management  

Governance 

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6

8

12

14

16

18

20

22

26

26

32

36

38

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Gresham House Annual Review 2023Group financial and strategic highlights

Assets under management1 
as at 31 Dec 2023

£8.5bn +8%

£7.8bn as at 31 Dec 2022

Adjusted unlisted 
proforma EBITDA3  
for the year to 31 Dec 2023

£36.0mn +13.7%

1. Assets Under Management is defined as the fee earning 
value of assets managed and advised by Gresham House.

3. Adjusted unlisted proforma EBITDA is after removing the cost 
of being a listed company.

Total net core income2 
for the year to 31 Dec 2023

£84.3mn +9%

£77.3mn as at 31 Dec 2022

2. Net core income includes asset management income and 
dividend and interest income earned in the year.

Financial highlights
ƒ

AUM grew by 8% to £8.5 billion as at 31 December 2023, 
growing £0.7 billion across all divisions

Adjusted unlisted proforma EBITDA of £36.0 million, after 
removing the cost of being a listed company

Adjusted unlisted proforma EBITDA margin grew to 42.7% 
for the year to 31 December 2023

Increase Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) to 24.9%, 
above our medium term target of 20.0%

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4

Strategic highlights
ƒ

Delist from the London Stock Exchange and take private 
by funds managed by Searchlight Capital Partners L.P. 
(Searchlight) in December 2023

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Launch of GH30 strategy stating the long-term growth 
goals and alignment of the business with clients and 
employees in 2024 and beyond

Sustainable Infrastructure fund BSIF II and co-investment 
vehicles final close of c.£450 million

Launched Private Equity Release Fund LP with 
commitments of over £50 million

Net fund inflows of c.£200 million in Public Equity funds

Continued award wins including for best Infrastructure 
fund at the prestigious LAPF Awards 2023

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Group financial and strategic highlights

Adjusted unlisted proforma  
EBITDA margin4 
for the year to 31 Dec 2023

Return on capital employed (ROCE)5 
for the year to 31 Dec 2023

42.7%

4. Adjusted unlisted proforma EBITDA margin defined as  
adjusted unlisted proforma EBITDA divided by net core income.

24.9%

18.9% as at 31 Dec 2022

5. ROCE is defined as Adjusted EBITDA plus net performance 
fees, net realised gains and development activity and fair 
value movements in investments, less fair value movement 
in contingent consideration, divided by opening net assets, 
adjusted for any shares issues in the year.

Sustainability highlights
ƒ

1.9mn tCO2e sequestered by our forests

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668,000 tCO2e avoided by our BESS assets

469 hectares biodiversity habitat banks created

168,000 underserved homes passed with “ready for 
service” full fibre broadband

A 25% reduction in our operational Scope 2 emissions

Shareholder
On 20 December 2023, Gresham House plc delisted 
from trading on the London Stock Exchange following its 
acquisition by Searchlight.

Founded in 2010, Searchlight is a transatlantic investment 
firm dedicated to identifying and developing outstanding 
global investment opportunities.

Both management and employees of Gresham House will 
be shareholders and are expected to comprise over 10% of 
share ownership in Gresham House as a private company.

5

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
 
Business overview - our divisions

Generating returns from alternative 
investment management

We are a specialist alternative asset 
management group, targeting strong financial 
returns with a focus on sustainable investments 
across a range of strategies, with expertise 
covering forestry, real estate, infrastructure, 
renewable energy, battery energy storage, and 
public and private equity.

Our origins stretch back to 1857, while our focus is on the 
future and the long term. We actively manage assets on behalf 
of institutions, family offices, charities and endowments, 
private individuals and their advisers. We act responsibly within 
a culture of empowerment that encourages individual flair 
and entrepreneurial thinking. We are increasingly taking our 
intellectual property and investment management expertise 
into international jurisdictions.

As a signatory to the UN-supported Principles for 
Responsible Investment, we are committed to operating 
responsibly and sustainably. We believe taking the long 
view in delivering sustainable investment solutions will 
continue to be a growing factor in the strength of our 
market positioning.

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We offer funds, direct investments and tailored solutions, 
including co-investment, across a range of sustainable 
investment strategies

We have created a specialist asset management business 
in the growing sustainable alternative investment space, 
focused on delivering strong financial returns alongside 
social and environmental objectives for both clients 
and shareholders 

Strategic Equity division

AUM £2.2bn

Targeting superior long-term returns in a range of public 
and private equity investments, by applying an active 
private equity approach, engaging with companies, 
employing rigorous due diligence and developing a 
deep understanding of each investment. Providing a 
differentiated platform for companies to evolve from early-
stage private capital through growth capital to listed capital. 

Public Equity £1.3bn AUM

As long-term investors with a focus on small and micro-
cap companies in the UK equity market, we are active 
stock pickers applying a private equity approach to quoted 
equities. We offer a range of investments including our 
open-ended equity funds, listed strategic public equity 
investment trusts and limited partnership vehicles.

In Ireland, we are active, long-term investors driven by a 
fundamental understanding of the quality and valuation of a 
particular investment. 

Private Equity £0.9bn AUM

Gresham House’s Private Equity strategy offers investors 
access to entrepreneurial, high growth, earlier stage and 
lower mid-market private companies. Investors are able to 
access our expertise in this area through the Baronsmead 
and Mobeus VCTs where we are investment manager and 
investment adviser respectively. We invest across the 
market but specialise in scaling software and digitally-
driven businesses in the healthcare, consumer and B2B 
services sectors.

6

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
Real Assets division

Business overview - our divisions

Through a focus on generating positive, absolute financial 
returns, our range of real assets investment products have 
the potential to provide protection from inflation through 
proven, long-term, sustainable, asset-backed investments. 
In many cases, they can also provide uncorrelated returns 
to equity markets with lower volatility, as well as diversified 
sources of income.

Forestry £3.5bn AUM

A natural capital real asset class that diversifies an investment 
portfolio and provides exposure to potential increases in the 
value of timber, carbon, natural capital and underlying land 
value that support long-term management programmes. 
The team seeks attractive long-term returns, uncorrelated to 
traditional debt and equity asset classes, and underpinned by 
the biological growth of the trees. Investments can provide a 
regular income yield in a tax-efficient manner.

New Energy £1.4bn AUM

We focus on sustainable, transformative technologies that 
we believe offer the potential for strong financial returns, 
while supporting the transition to a more sustainable world. 
This includes investment into battery energy storage, 
ground and roof-mounted solar and onshore wind as well 
as collocation.

AUM £6.3bn

Sustainable Infrastructure £0.7bn AUM 

Significant investment is needed in new Sustainable 
Infrastructure that can support and accelerate the 
changes and innovative solutions required to address key 
environmental and societal challenges. Our Sustainable 
Infrastructure investments, we believe, will deliver strong 
financial, social and environmental returns alongside 
supporting the transition to a more sustainable world. 
They provide innovative solutions that enable a new, more 
sustainable, way of living, and can be accessed through 
limited partnership funds and regional co-investment funds.

Real Estate £0.7bn AUM

We offer long-term equity investments into UK housing, 
through listed and unlisted housing investment vehicles, 
each focused on addressing different areas of the 
affordable housing problem. Our investments aim to deliver 
stable and secure inflation-linked returns while providing 
social and environmental benefits to our residents, the local 
community and the wider economy. In Ireland, we provide 
value-add investments in commercial property - office, 
retail and industrial properties in the greater Dublin area and 
major regional urban centres. 

7

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Chief Executive’s report

Generating strong financial returns, from  
long-term investments for long-term clients

2023 has been a momentous year for Gresham 
House. In December, Gresham House plc 
delisted from the London Stock Exchange to 
become a privately owned company following 
completion of the acquisition by Searchlight 
Capital Partners (Searchlight) announced last 
July, with the intention of management and 
employees investing significantly alongside 
the Searchlight funds.

We are excited about what we can deliver in the future, in 
partnership with Searchlight and importantly with expanded 
ownership across our teams. Our long-term strategic plan 
“GH30” encapsulates how we plan to grow the business 
further through alignment with clients and the funds that 
we’re managing on their behalf. 

AUM Growth Chart 2018 – 2023 (£ Billion) 

As we grow our client base in the UK, Ireland, and 
internationally, the same talented and dedicated teams 
will continue to serve our clients, supporting them with the 
delivery of strong financial and non-financial returns to meet 
their objectives. Our investment solutions will be delivered 
with an unwavering focus on investment performance 
combined with sustainability targets to align with our 
clients’ ambitions. 

Since the management buy-in of Gresham House in 
late 2014, the Group has been transformed from a loss-
making investment trust into a profitable, leading specialist 
alternative asset manager focused on sustainable 
investments across a range of strategies, with expertise 
covering forestry, real estate, sustainable infrastructure, 
renewable energy, battery storage and public and 
private equity. 

10

8

6

4

2

0

30% CAGR6

6.5

8.5

7.8

4.0

2.3

2.8

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

Existing AUM

Organic

Acquistions

6. CAGR - Compound Annual Growth Rate.

8

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Chief Executive’s report

£36mn

adjusted unlisted proforma7 EBITDA in the 12 
month period ending 31 December 2023 from 
a loss-making investment company in 2014

7. Adjusted unlisted proforma EBITDA is after removing the 
cost of being a listed company.

Highlights:

£8.5bn

AUM growth from a standing start in  
December 2014 to 31 December 2023

300%

total return to Gresham House shareholders 
since the management buy-in in 
December 2014 

42% CAGR

Net Core Income growth over 5 years to 2023

7th largest global Forestry asset 
manager (by value)

9th largest global Natural Capital 
manager (by value)

>£690mn 

AUM within pioneering and innovative 
Sustainable Infrastructure division

No 1 operational utility scale 
battery storage fund in Europe 

230

full-time employees in the business from 
fewer than ten in December 2014 

2nd largest VCT manager in the UK 
(Baronsmead and Mobeus VCTs)

9

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Chief Executive’s report

Today, Gresham House actively manages £8.5 billion 
of assets, across a footprint that spans the UK, Ireland, 
Australia, and New Zealand, on behalf of institutions, 
charities and endowments, family offices, private 
individuals, and their advisers.

Our focus is on continuing to deliver the financial solutions 
and investment returns that we set out to achieve for our 
investors alongside non-financial returns.

Our diversified and innovative portfolio of asset classes 
continued to deliver returns for investors in 2023, with the 
majority of investment products outperforming relative 
to either their comparator benchmarks or stated target 
returns, and typically with our real assets strategies 
additionally offering resilience against rising inflation and 
interest rates, and lower volatility.  

As a sustainable investor we are committed to the belief 
that our clients should not need to compromise their 
primary objectives of strong financial returns in order 
to meet their sustainability goals. Alongside a keen 
sustainability focus within all the Group’s investment 
strategies, we are setting ourselves at the forefront of the 
more nascent conversation about Natural Capital. Our 
platform offers a suite of investment solutions predicated 
on the Group’s expertise and experience in sustainable 
forestry as well as emerging asset classes within our 
sustainable infrastructure strategy, such as habitat banks 
and vertical farming. 

EBITDA growth 2018 - 2023 (£ Million)

In addition, the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial 
Disclosures (TCFD) report we published in March 2023 
alongside our Sustainable Investment Report 2022, was 
recognised at the Environmental Finance Sustainable 
Investment Awards as the TCFD Report of the Year. This is 
a strong endorsement of our best practice approach to this 
increasingly important method of reporting.

International 
Our international ambitions are making steady progress, 
with the growth of our Irish Strategic Forestry Fund and 
deployment in Forestry in Australasia. Fundraising is 
underway for our International Forestry Fund where we are 
speaking to potential investors globally including in Australia 
and Japan, and we are working on international segregated 
mandates as well as a global energy transition strategy.

Brand and client 
diversification and depth
The Gresham House brand has consistently gained in 
strength and profile, driven by our market leading and 
innovative investment strategies, expertise, and experience, 
combined with recognition of the value that we deliver 
to our stakeholders across our asset classes. This is 
generating significant client diversification and depth, with 
many new fund launches attracting new institutional and 
long-term clients. 

60% CAGR

32.2

29.4

20.5

10.7

12.1

3.0

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

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Gresham House Annual Review 2023Chief Executive’s report

83% of employees 
feel trusted to take 
personal responsibility 
for their work
whether working in the office 
or remotely

We are developing further breadth and depth in our client 
base as we demonstrate our international credentials 
and our long-term alignment with clients who seek strong 
financial returns. We have a good pipeline of investors 
looking to invest into funds or co-investments, despite 
the impact of the current challenging macroeconomic 
environment on decision-making timeframes.

We are confident that Gresham House will continue to 
drive the delivery of its financial and strategic goals, and 
maintain its leading market positions as the Group moves 
towards the next phase of its growth, increasingly on 
the global stage. 

We continue to execute our long-term ambition to help 
clients achieve their financial investment goals alongside 
their non-financial objectives. It’s an exciting time for those 
involved with Gresham House, the energy to be successful 
remains substantial.

Tony Dalwood
Chief Executive

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People
Our entrepreneurial team and culture remain key 
differentiators for the business. Although ever mindful 
of the need to deliver operational efficiencies, we have 
continued to strengthen our operational effectiveness 
with the strategic recruitment of leading talent in specific 
areas of growth, and additions to senior investment, senior 
distribution and business development personnel. 

Whilst cognisant of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion agenda, 
we are a strongly meritocratic group. However, it is pleasing 
to note that the number of women in senior management 
positions increased to 35% in 2023 from 33% in 2022, and 
the number of ethnic minority employees increased from 
16% in 2022 to 19% in 2023.

The alignment of all employees to delivering value is really 
important to drive the dynamism within the business. 
We are finalising plans enabling this long-term alignment 
through a new share ownership plan available to everyone in 
the group now that we are a private business.

Outlook
We are excited to see continued momentum into 2024 and 
beyond, and the goals set out within our GH30 plan provide 
a well-defined strategy and a clear path to growth across all 
our asset classes. 

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Strategic framework – GH30

GH30 is our strategic framework to grow 
the business over the next five years and 
beyond, aligning ourselves with our clients 
over the long term. 

It is a continuation of our successfully executed GH25 
plan and encapsulates financial and strategic targets. 
Through the delivery of these targets we aim to deliver 
a business with an AUM of £20 billion and an EBITDA of 
£90 million by 2030.

Alignment of our investment teams with clients 
over the long term is important to achieving clients’ 
financial returns and to providing consistency in 
delivery. This will include long-term incentive schemes, 
such as carried interest and performance fees, that 
are successful only when clients’ target returns 
are delivered. 

12

Financial targets

£20bn

AUM

1%

Gross fee margin

£90mn
EBITDA8 

45%

Margins

20%
ROCE9 

8. Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and 
Amortisation – another way to measure profitability.

9. Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) defined as adjusted 
EBITDA + net performance fees + net development over 
the medium term.

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Strategic framework – GH30

Strategic targets

Strategic targets by business unit

Superior investment performance

Forestry

Majority of funds exceeding investment target returns

Recognised top 5 global forestry and natural 
capital manager

Market leadership

The manager of choice for sustainable investment 
client solutions

New Energy

A market leader in global battery energy storage

International presence

Sustainable Infrastructure

Grow AUM and deploy capital internationally 

Successful fund closes for BSIF III and BSIF IV 
totalling over £2 billion in new capital

M&A

Delivery of accretive M&A, in line with 
financial targets

Real Estate

Significant growth in UK residential client offering 
across shared ownership, retirement and build-
to-rent and expansion of specialist Irish real 
estate offering

Public Equity

To be recognised as the leading specialist UK and 
Ireland equity franchise

Private Equity

Grow VCT funds to £1.2 billion+ and to raise c.£250 
million in non-VCT funds

Generating value through financial 
returns and our focus on sustainability

13

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Our clients

Our clients include individual investors, 
financial advisers, institutional investors, 
charities, and endowments.

We partner with our clients to ensure that our current 
and future investment solutions meet their financial and 
sustainability requirements, often tailoring bespoke 
solutions to meet their needs.

Gresham House’s diversified mix of real assets and equity 
strategies enables us to work with clients to find solutions 
that deliver the financial return on investment they seek.

Importantly, Gresham House and employees typically invest 
alongside our clients in our funds.

We are proud to work with a growing number of the UK’s 
largest institutional investors including 18 Local Government 
Pension Schemes (LGPS) across our Real Asset strategies. In 
our Strategic Equity division, we are proud to have bucked the 
trend of outflows from UK equities by continuing to attract 
inflows into our UK equity funds as well as being included on 
national wealth management central coverage lists, including 
those of Brewin Dolphin, Rathbones and Evelyn Partners. 

Institutional clients
Institutional investors require solutions that meet their 
financial objectives first and foremost but also want 
investments that make positive contributions to the 
environment and society.

We use our unique position of investing in alternative assets 
to develop investment solutions that meet clients’ specific 
sustainability outcomes, including:
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Supporting their net-zero and climate targets

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Investing in place-based solutions within 
their local regions

Developing natural capital investment solutions

Providing social impact investments

An important aspect of our relationships with current and 
prospective clients is the provision of education around our 
investment solutions and site visits to bring the investments to 
life. In 2023, Gresham House hosted site visits for 40 investors 
(including from local government pension schemes (LGPS)), 
Endowments, Asset Managers and Investment Consultants) to 
visit assets from our investment portfolio in action.

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Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
Our clients

Wholesale clients
Our wholesale investors are attracted to our specialist and 
differentiated investment approach.

Our long-term investment philosophy for the Group’s Strategic 
Equity offering applies private equity techniques to investing 
in public markets. Our funds seek to invest in companies that 
are robust and resilient, that operate in structurally attractive 
markets or have a niche, differentiated proposition, and are 
less exposed to external factors. Our fundamental approach 
to building high conviction, concentrated portfolios is based 
on the deep analysis of specific companies. Alongside this, 
there’s been growing interest in our alternative strategies, as 
a way of diversifying returns away from traditional equities 
and bonds. Gresham House’s range of real asset investment 
products provide exposure to sustainable forestry, affordable 
housing and battery energy storage.

AUM by client channel

13%

45%

43%

Private clients and family offices
Many of Gresham House’s private and family office clients 
have had investments managed by the company and its 
predecessors for decades. Such longstanding relationships 
are a cornerstone of Gresham House’s client service ethos.

 Wholesale/Retail 

 Institutional/LGPS/Charity 

 HNW/Family Office 

£3.6bn

£3.8bn

£1.1bn

 Total £8.5bn

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Gresham House Annual Review 2023Our people and culture   

It is the people in our business who are critical 
to our success, it is their knowledge, their 
creativity, their responsibility, their focus that 
has driven the success that we have achieved 
and will drive the future growth of the business.

At the heart of this is our culture, a culture of innovation, 
embracing new ideas, meeting challenges head on and 
encouraging people to “make a difference”. 

This is underpinned by the six core values that we hold: 

Ambition

Dynamism

Authenticity

Empowerment

Collaboration

Meritocracy

16

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Our people and culture   

80% of employees 
understand how 
their job contributes 
to the success of 
Gresham House

Our culture enables us to design and implement innovative 
investment solutions capable of building a sustainable 
future and ensuring environmental, social and governance 
considerations remain front and centre in our thinking.

We place great importance on ensuring all new joiners 
feel fully integrated and valued, and that they are clear on 
how their role contributes to our success and growth. We 
have implemented a co-ordinated, in-person induction 
programme for all new joiners to the business. 

This induction takes place within the first month of 
someone joining the business and follows the provision of 
an induction pack for all new starters alongside access to 
our new online onboarding module which provides further 
employee information on benefits, access to the staff 
handbook and teams details. 

When welcoming new employees to Gresham House, it is 
important that they fully understand our values and culture, 
and that they feel they belong and are provided with the 
knowledge and skills to fulfil their role as effectively and 
proficiently as possible by ensuring they know key elements 
of the business and how to operate and navigate.

17

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Our Corporate Sustainability Strategy

The sustainable investment landscape and sustainability-related regulation 
continues to evolve rapidly. Our Corporate Sustainability Strategy positions 
us to prepare for and adapt to these changes. The strategy is built around 
three core pillars, covering our work as a sustainable investor, business and 
employer, and corporate citizen. We believe this strategy will drive better 
long-term financial and sustainability outcomes for our clients.

Gresham House as a 
Sustainable Investor
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Partnered with Pensions for Purpose to produce a timely 
Impact Lens report on Natural Capital and Biodiversity – 
leading the debate in this critical area

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Published our inaugural Taskforce on Climate-Related 
Financial Disclosures (TCFD) report, winning the 
Environmental Finance Sustainable Investment Awards 
TCFD Report of the Year

Published our proprietary impact framework for our 
sustainable infrastructure strategies

Mapped modern slavery risks across the supply chains of 
our Real Assets divisions

Gresham House as a  
Sustainable Business & Employer
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Established an internal Sustainability Working Group 
to improve our operational sustainability, leading to the 
reduction of our operational Scope 2 emissions of 25%

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Introduced a travel policy with the objective of reducing 
our work-related travel emissions

Developed an internal data collation system to improve 
data accuracy of our carbon footprint

Introduced an annual company funded health assessment 
to enable employees to take a proactive approach 
to their health

Delivered resilience training to all employees through an 
external provider

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Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Our Corporate Sustainability Strategy

Gresham House as a  
Sustainable Corporate Citizen
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Selected two new corporate charity partners. This 
year we focused on charities of a smaller size so that 
we can have a more meaningful impact on them, 
in terms of time contributed and fundraising as a 
percentage of their annual income

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11% of our employees opted to donate to their 
chosen charities using our Give as You Earn Scheme, 
whereby Gresham House matches employee 
donations up to £50 per month, contributing £25,850 
through this scheme in 2023

Rebecca Craddock-Taylor
Director, Sustainable Investment

19

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
The last year in numbers

Sustainable Investor

Commitment to Sustainability

Assets under management (£bn)
Of which are10: Responsible
Sustainable

Impact
PRI Assessment11 

Climate Change

Impact
PRI Assessment12 

Strategic Equity

Public Equity

Management teams met by our UK team (%)

ESG engagements

Private Equity

Unquoted portfolio companies engaged with (%)

Portfolio company Boards attended as a member or observer (%)

Real Assets

Forestry

Trees planted (mn)

Carbon sequestered by forests (mn tCO2e)

New Energy

Renewable energy generation (GWh)

Operational battery energy storage capacity (MW)

Sustainable Infrastructure

Total hectares supporting nature recovery completed

2022

2023

7.8

2.1

5.0

0.7

8.5

2.2

5.0

1.3

4 or 5 stars

4 or 5 stars

2022

0.7

2023

1.3

4 or 5 stars

4 or 5 stars

2022

2023

93

75

100

71

100

108

100

78

2022

2023

9.1

1.9

487

550

329

6.4

1.9

418

690

469

Premises passed with “ready for service” full fibre/gigabit-capable broadband

66,308

168,475

Real Estate

New homes constructed

Portfolio EPC rating B or above

235

40

126

41

10. These categories are based on our internal definitions as set out in our Spectrum of Capital.

11. Gresham House received 4 or 5 stars, out of a maximum of 5 stars, for all submitted modules.

12. Gresham House received 4 or 5 stars, out of a maximum of 5 stars, for all submitted modules.

20

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Sustainable Business & Employer

Our People

Women in senior management (%)

Ethnic minority employees (%)

Employee advocacy score (%)

Climate Change

Operational emissions (Scope 1,2&3, tCO2e)

Operational carbon intensity (Scope 1,2&3 tCO2e/FTE)

Annual energy use (MWh)

Sustainable Corporate Citizen

Charitable Giving

Corporate charitable giving (£’000)

Employees using Give as You Earn (%)

The last year in numbers

2022

33

16

76

2022

362

1.7

642

2022

63

9

2023

35

19

74

2023

576

2.6

680

2023

59

11

81% of employees feel their 
immediate manager encourages 
an entrepreneurial approach
which includes challenge and open debate

21

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Investment performance

As a specialist investment manager we provide 
a differentiated range of specialist investments 
from real assets to public and private equity. 
Our focus is on delivering attractive risk-
adjusted returns over the long term.

In real assets we look to provide uncorrelated returns to 
equity markets as well as diversified sources of income while 
in strategic equity we target superior long-term returns.

It is pleasing to highlight that in our Real Asset investments 
that the majority of our strategies continue to deliver 
outperformance against their target IRRs, while in strategic 
equity our specialist UK equity funds are all top quartile 
performing funds over one year as well as being either first 
or second quartile since their respective launch dates.

Within our VCT offering, the Mobeus VCTs have delivered 
consistent outperformance over all periods while the 
Baronsmead VCTs, which are the only hybrid VCTs 
in the market, have delivered good absolute returns 
over most periods.

Real Assets

Avg. annual net returns since inception13  Avg. target IRR14 

Forestry

12.6%

New Energy

10.9%

Annualised NAV TR

Sustainable Infrastructure

15.7%

Avg. net IRR to date

Real Estate

2.1%

Annualised NAV TR17 

7%

Target IRR15 

8%

Target IRR16 

8-10%

Target IRR

8%

13. Gresham House. Long-term annual returns (net of all fees and costs) for long-established Gresham House forestry funds/portfolios from 
inception to 31 December 2023.

14. Across Gresham House Limited Partnerships and Managed Accounts.

15. GRID Annualised NAV TR as at 31 December 2023

16. BSIF II net IRR to 31 December 2023 (unaudited).

17. ReSI plc NAV as at 31 December 2023.

22

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Investment performance

Public Equity

Cumulative performance 

1-year

3-years

5-years

10-years

Since launch

WS Gresham House UK Multi Cap Income Fund

IA UK Equity Income sector average

Sector quartile rank

WS Gresham House UK Micro Cap Fund

IA UK Smaller Companies sector average

Sector quartile rank

WS Gresham House UK Smaller Companies Fund

IA UK Smaller Companies sector average

Sector quartile rank
Strategic Equity Capital plc (share price)18 
AIC UK Smaller Companies 

Sector quartile rank

12.5%

7.0%

1

5.0%

0.5%

1

7.3%

0.5%

1

17.5%

3.5%

1

31.8%

24.8%

1

-7.9%

-7.6%

3

13.2%

-7.6%

1

41.1%

6.5%

1

62.5%

33.5%

1

18.0%

23.4%

3

n/a

n/a

n/a

69.3%

35.1%

1

n/a

n/a

n/a

107.8%

69.1%

1

n/a

n/a

n/a

131.1%

91.4%

2

72.6%

24.5%

1

387.4%

328.4%

2

59.0%

18.1%

1

81.8%

50.5%

1

Source: FE Analytics, as at 31 December 2023

Cumulative performance – Public Equity (Ireland)

1-year

3-years

5-years

10-years

Since launch

Gresham House Global Multi-Asset Fund

8.1%

Gresham House Global Thematic Multi-Asset Fund 4.4%

Gresham House Global Equity Fund

Gresham House Global Small Company Fund

Gresham House Euro Liquidity Fund

12.9%

7.4%

1.3%

22.8%

12.1%

38.9%

-3.0%

-1.9%

38.4%

37.0%

61.7%

12.7%

-3.7%

59.9%

n/a

91.9%

32.6%

109.5%

176.2%

41.6%

-5.2%

85.9%

1.1%

Source: Gresham House, Ireland as at 31 December 2023

18. Gresham House was appointed investment manager to Strategic Equity Capital plc effective as 21 May 2020.

23

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Investment performance

Cumulative performance – Real Estate (Ireland)
Gresham House Commercial Property Fund19 

1-year

-3.2%

3-years

5-years

10-years

Since launch

0.4%

7.2%

n/a

29.4%

Source: Gresham House, Ireland as at 31 December 2023

VCTs

Cumulative NAV Total Return performance – VCTs

1-year

3-years

5-years

10-years

Mobeus Income and Growth VCT

VCT Generalist sector average

Sector quartile rank

Mobeus Income and Growth 2 VCT

VCT Generalist sector average

Sector quartile rank

Mobeus Income and Growth 4 VCT

VCT Generalist sector average

Sector quartile rank

The Income and Growth VCT

VCT Generalist sector average

Sector quartile rank

Baronsmead VCT

VCT Generalist sector average

Sector quartile rank

Baronsmead Second VCT

VCT Generalist sector average

Sector quartile rank

6.1%

0.4%

1

3.6%

0.4%

2

5.0%

0.4%

1

6.4%

0.4%

1

0.9%

0.4%

4

0.0%

0.4%

4

26.7%

14.6%

2

21.0%

14.6%

2

26.5%

14.6%

2

28.2%

14.6%

1

-2.4%

14.6%

4

-1.8%

14.6%

4

57.9%

23.8%

1

42.6%

23.8%

1

55.6%

23.8%

1

58.7%

23.8%

1

9.0%

23.8%

4

14.7%

23.8%

3

76.8%

44.1%

1

78.6%

44.1%

1

69.3%

44.1%

1

73.9%

44.1%

1

30.4%

44.1%

4

28.0%

44.1%

4

Source: AIC prepared by Morningstar: Cumulative NAV Total Return (dividends reinvested) as at 31 December 2023

19. Gresham House, Ireland as at 31 December 2023 on a gross return basis.

24

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Investment performance

25

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Divisional Reviews

Real Assets

Protection from inflation through proven, 
sustainable asset-backed investments 

Gresham House’s Real Assets strategy targets sustainable 
yield and long-term capital growth for clients, through 
investment in a variety of tangible assets. Comprising 
forestry, real estate, renewables, battery energy storage, 
and sustainable infrastructure asset classes, our Real 
Assets division aims to provide investors with protection 
from inflation and portfolio diversification via proven, 
sustainable alternative investments. 

Olly Hughes
Managing Director, Forestry

Forestry 
£3.5bn AUM as at 31 Dec 2023

The Forestry division continues to grow and is now the 
seventh largest forestry investment manager in the world by 
value, providing a range of sustainable investment solutions 
across a number of geographies for institutions and private 
investors. The team has been expanded to include local 
specialist team members in Ireland and Australasia and 
we look to continue to build our international platform. 
Our strong returns over the last 15 years of 13% show the 
attractions of this asset class to drive portfolio performance.

Flexibility in harvesting prevails as a critical benefit to forestry 
investment. In the face of timber markets weakened by a 
global outlook, Gresham House has sought to ensure that the 
asset values of the forests we manage have been protected 
in volatile markets. This has historically underlined the 
resilience of forestry against the business cycle, leading to 
greater risk adjusted returns than most major asset classes 
over the last 15 years, and providing a unique return profile 
for institutions striving for portfolio diversification.

26

AUM £6.3bn 
as at 31 December 2023

Afforestation remains a core strategy for the division going 
forward in light of weak planting statistics around the world 
and plays a critical role in carbon sequestration, reversing 
biodiversity loss and enhancing natural capital alongside a 
myriad of other public externalities. Carbon sequestration 
and its monetisation in the form of carbon credits remain 
integral to some of our strategies, allowing investors to 
meaningfully contribute towards their emissions targets. 

Natural capital remains at the core of the forestry business 
and our investment strategies, improving the world’s stock 
of natural resources through the sustainable management 
of forest assets. Rigorous monitoring and reporting across 
Gresham House assets will drive impact decisions across 
our forestry strategies ensuring strong financial returns are 
delivered alongside sustainability objectives.

Institutional interest in the asset class continues to grow, 
with sustainability, natural capital and resilience at the 
forefront of investors’ minds as the drivers of global 
investing develop. Forestry benefits from its position at 
the core of these critical themes, delivering stable financial 
returns as well as key sustainability objectives. 

As global interest in forestry develops, Gresham House is 
well positioned with a long-term track record in managing 
forestry investments across the globe, including the UK, 
Australasia and  Ireland. As global capital is increasingly 
directed at sustainable real assets, Gresham House is 
leveraging its expertise and knowledge base amongst these 
geographies to expand and develop a global platform. 

Gresham House’s focus on temperate climates reflects 
a long-term investment thesis in delivering long-term 
capital appreciation combined with stable income yields. 
By leveraging our extensive global network of partners 
and agents, Gresham House is poised to capitalise on this 
investor demand with flexible, international and long-term 
investment solutions.

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Divisional Reviews - Real Assets

Ben Guest
Managing Director, New Energy

New Energy  
£1.4bn AUM as at 31 Dec 2023

The UK’s approach to electricity generation is undergoing 
fundamental change, shifting from coal and gas-fired power 
stations towards an energy mix dominated by renewable 
energy. The Gresham House New Energy team aims to 
support the shift from finite resources by harnessing the 
power of renewables and battery energy storage systems 
(BESS). We focus on sustainable, transformative technologies 
that we believe offer the potential for strong financial returns, 
while supporting the transition to a more sustainable world. 
Our investments are made in three key technologies (solar, 
wind and BESS), all of which help to decarbonise electricity 
supply at a time of increasing demand.

The New Energy team manages a number of different fund 
vehicles for different investor types, with a combined assets 
under management of £1.4 billion at the end of 2023. We are 
also targeting growth with a focus on international battery 
energy storage systems.

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc (GRID) invests in a 
portfolio of utility-scale BESS, providing key, flexible energy 
infrastructure that addresses the intermittency challenges 
introduced by renewables. 

The GRID portfolio includes 24 operational sites with a total 
capacity of 740MW as at 1 February 2024, equating to over 
20% market share of operational BESS in Great Britain20. 

In 2024, GRID aims to reach 1,072MW in total operational 
capacity and to complete a number of extensions to project 
durations, taking the average project duration to 1.6hrs 
(currently 1.2hrs).

We manage operational solar parks across both public and 
private investment platforms, as well as onshore wind farms 
in the UK through LP and unlisted structures. We believe 
that there is an exciting opportunity for solar and potentially 
wind assets to be collocated with BESS, using a shared 
grid connection. 

Sharing a grid connection point is intended to reduce 
up-front cost, plus the renewable energy projects target 
enhanced returns from the additional and non-correlated 
BESS revenues. We have acquired collocated projects 
at pre-construction stage in both England and Ireland, 
as well as targeting similar projects in other regions 
including California.

1.4GW 

Current GRID investment pipeline 

20GW 
UK market opportunity by 203021

20. Modo Energy, “The Buildout report Q4 2023”, Jan 2024.

21. National Grid ESO, “Future Energy Scenarios”, p.195, July 2023.

27

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Divisional Reviews - Real Assets

We seek a positive impact while also aiming to achieve strong 
risk-adjusted financial returns, which investors can access 
through our Limited Partnership Funds (BSIF I, BSIF II, and 
BSIF III currently fundraising), our regional co-investment 
funds and direct investment funds.

The six target Sustainable Infrastructure subsectors 
we invest in are:
ƒ

Decarbonisation – facilitating the infrastructure needed to 
transition to a low- carbon world;

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

Digital inclusion – providing better access to gigabit 
capable digital connectivity;

Health & education – better access to high-quality 
specialised health and education;

Regeneration – nature-based solutions to 
biodiversity loss;

Resource efficiency – infrastructure that can limit our use 
of the Earth’s finite resources; and

Waste Solutions – environmentally sound, value creating 
management of waste.

All our investments focus initially on smaller, sub £50 million 
greenfield infrastructure, where there are fewer competing 
investors to develop and build out new assets at this scale 
given the specialised skills needed to deliver successful 
projects. Once platforms have then been established, our 
strategy seeks to invest larger commitments, across our 
funds, into these platforms to achieve economies of scale 
and greater impact.

Peter Bachmann
Managing Director, Sustainable Infrastructure

Sustainable infrastructure 
£0.7bn AUM as at 31 Dec 2023

Targeting financial returns typically of 8-12% IRR,  the 
investments within our Sustainable Infrastructure 
strategy, known as the BSIF strategy, directly address key 
sustainability challenges, providing innovative solutions that 
aim to enable a new, more sustainable, way of living.  

£2.0bn 

Current investment pipeline 

£1.0tn 
UK market opportunity22

22. Estimated investible universe across the six target subsectors of 
Resource efficiency, Digital inclusion, Regeneration, Waste solutions, 
Decarbonisation and Health & education.

28

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
 
 
Divisional Reviews - Real Assets

We have 12 well-diversified platform investments currently 
within the portfolio. £189 million of capital was deployed 
during the year, including two significant new investments 
into our health & education thematic, along with further 
growth in our ground-breaking Biodiversity Net Gain 
platform business, coupled with very strong growth in our 
digital inclusion platforms.
ƒ

Health & education: continuing to invest in our platforms 
to create specialist aged and dementia care facilities 
(Aurem) and the provision of new top-quality children’s 
nurseries (N Family Club) across the UK; 

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

Regeneration: working with Environment Bank to create over 
4,000 hectares of new landscape-scale habitat banks that 
will deliver huge biodiversity net gains for unproductive land 
across England in accordance with the Environment Act; 

Waste solutions: investments to scale up our specialist 
waste platforms Waste Knot Energy (WKE) and Fornax. 
WKE plays into the huge sectoral need to decarbonise the 
cement and steel industries and Fornax into the need for 
clinical waste disposal exacerbated by COVID-19 and the 
large backlog of elective surgeries;

Digital inclusion: connected over 120,000 new premises 
ready for service (RFS) to provide gigabit speed internet into 
rural locations across Cornwall/Devon and Scottish borders 
via Wildanet and GoFibre respectively, plus made the 
strategic acquisition of Luminet into our Telcom business to 
expand focus into the London B2B internet market; and 

Resource efficiency: investing in vertical farm technologies 
that currently grow herbs and leafy greens indoors on 
multiple levels of shelving, using hydroponics and LEDs. 
The vertical farms use 98% less water than field grown 
crops;  require 98% less land than field grown crops; do 
not use pesticides; and give 14-21 days longer shelf life in 
stores, reducing food waste.

The Sustainable Infrastructure team will continue to raise 
new capital and seek to create more locally and/or sector 
focused co-investment vehicles and direct investments. 
The team is also assessing new vehicles that appeal to the 
defined contribution pensions and insurance markets to 
fund the large, defined pipeline from the existing 12 platform 
businesses, along with the deep pipeline of new Sustainable 
Infrastructure assets that the team is pursuing.

The majority of the Sustainable Infrastructure portfolio’s 
assets are not directly exposed to rising interest rates as 
only three platforms have external debt facilities. Those 
that are exposed, have strategies in place to deal with rising 
interest rates including long-term interest rate fixes. The 
funds themselves can make use of revolving credit facilities 
to stagger investor drawdowns and improve returns. 

The target investment sectors are mostly resilient to 
the inflationary environment, with equity returns rising in 
line with inflation. The largest inflationary impact on the 
portfolio is rising energy prices, with a number of portfolio 
companies exposed to increases. This is being mitigated 
where possible with the use of long-term contracts and 
renewable energy sources.

Overall, the Sustainable Infrastructure strategies are poised 
for high growth given the strong financial returns of the 
funds to date, coupled with the ever more urgent need for 
more sustainable solutions for all aspects of human life. 

29

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
 
Divisional Reviews - Real Assets

Mike Adams
Managing Director, Real Estate

Real Estate - UK Housing 
£0.5bn AUM as at 31 Dec 2023

Investing in two important trends:
ƒ

Improving the quality of and institutionalising the UK’s five 
million privately rented homes; and

ƒ

Providing affordable homeownership options.

Gresham House is well placed to meet this demand for 
good quality, affordable housing in the UK with long-term 
investment strategies focused on listed and unlisted 
specialist investment funds. All our investments are 
predicated on providing high-quality, fairly priced homes that 
are affordable to the majority of the UK’s population. We have 
an established track record as early investors since 2017 
in both mass market rental accommodation (3,600 homes 
managed) and shared ownership (2,100 homes managed). 

Housing investments benefit from substantial asset-
backing and provide investors with the potential for 
attractive resilient long-term returns, offering:
ƒ

inflation-linked income;

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

potential for long-term capital appreciation 
above inflation; 

positive social and environmental benefit to our residents, 
the local community, and the wider economy;

a secure and sustainable rental stream from 
thousands of residents;

low volatility and high demand, in many cases, through 
below-market rents; and

diversification compared with traditional asset classes.

Housing has a key role in investors’ portfolios, and in the US 
and Germany is often seen as the primary component of 
core return strategies with institutional investment of 21% 
and 10% respectively, way ahead of the UK’s 1.5% .  

For our core client base of Local Government Pension 
Schemes (LGPS), directing funds towards investments 
in this area has the potential to deliver the dual benefit 
of return on investment and accelerating the levelling up 
agenda to empower regional communities.

These are capital-intensive opportunities which typically 
require a long-term investment horizon and a significant 
upfront investment of time to realise best value in the long 
run. The investment team’s extensive industry experience 
and network of contacts and advisors position us well to 
realise this long-term value. 

30

We aim to be a best-in-class provider of affordable housing 
and drive an improvement in standards across the sector, 
in order to deliver best in class returns. For example, in 2020 
we developed a Shared Ownership Customer Charter and a 
Shared Ownership Environmental Charter, which are unique 
in the shared ownership sector and provide benefits to both 
shared owners and our investors. 

John Bruder
Head of Real Estate, Gresham House Ireland

Real Estate - Commercial  
Property, Ireland 
£0.2bn AUM as at 31 Dec 2023

In Ireland, we provide investment management and advisory 
services in respect of Irish commercial real estate primarily 
in the office, retail and industrial sectors.

Our property fund, the Gresham House Commercial Property 
Fund, is focused on investing in properties in suburban Dublin 
and major regional centres which offer good value and high 
running income yields, while carrying low leverage. This 
fund has consistently produced above average returns and 
has been confirmed by MSCI as the best performing Irish 
property fund over the three years to 2022. 

In addition to the property fund, we advise and 
manage a number of segregated portfolios on behalf 
of private, corporate as well as local and international 
institutional clients. 

6,000 

homes managed across the UK 

£1.3tn 

Market size 

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Divisional Reviews - Real Assets

31

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Divisional Reviews

Strategic Equity

An investment philosophy based on applying 
a private equity approach to investing in both 
public and private companies.

AUM £2.2bn 
as at 31 December 2023

Strategy
The UK arm of the Gresham House Strategic Equity division 
targets superior long-term returns in a range of public and 
private equity investments, by employing a balanced portfolio 
approach with individual investments focused on extracting 
value from thematic drivers and sectors undergoing dynamic 
change. The equity investment teams actively engage with 
companies’ management teams and apply rigorous due 
diligence to develop a deep understanding of each company. 

The Strategic Equity division consists of the 
following strategies:

ƒ

ƒ

 Public Equity:
 – Strategic Public Equity
 – UK Micro Cap, UK Multi Cap Income and UK 

Smaller Companies

  Private Equity:
 – Venture Capital
 – Growth Capital
 – Private Equity

The division has a unique suite of investment fund 
products that invest across the business lifecycle from 
relatively early-stage private growth businesses within 
the Baronsmead and Mobeus VCTs; in micro-cap and 
small-cap public companies in our public equity funds; 
and right through to more mature businesses in the FTSE 
100 within our WS Gresham House UK Multi Cap Income 
Fund which has the flexibility to seek the best income and 
growth opportunities right across the market cap spectrum. 
The breadth of touchpoints with companies of all sizes, 
public and private, gives the team an excellent perspective 
of the UK market and enables them to share insights, 
a talent network and expertise to enhance the overall 
investment process.

Our Strategic Equity team is focused on its core principles 
of seeking out resilient businesses with strong management 
teams and sustainable competitive advantage in areas of 
the market seeing structural growth. The team’s investment 
process is designed to deliver attractive through-the-cycle 
returns regardless of short-term economic conditions. 
Periods of market and economic discontinuity often 
produce attractive long-term investment opportunities for 
those investors prepared to undertake the hard work to 
unearth them and then support those companies to deliver 
their strategies to create value.

Our product offering

Enterprise value

 <£20mn

£20-30mn

£30-100mn

£100-250mn

£250mn-1bn

>£1bn

Gresham House Private Equity 
Release Strategy

Private Equity

Mobeus VCTs

Baronsmead VCTs

Public Equity

32

Strategic Equity Capital plc

WS Gresham House 
UK Micro Cap Fund

WS Gresham House UK 
Smaller Companies Fund

WS Gresham House UK Multi Cap Income Fund

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
Divisional Reviews - Strategic Equity

Ken Wotton
Managing Director, Public Equity

Patrick Lawless
Managing Director, Gresham House Ireland

Public Equity  
£1.3bn AUM as at 31 Dec 2023

Public Equity, UK

Our Public Equity philosophy revolves around taking an 
engaged approach with our investee company stakeholders 
- including management, shareholders, customers and 
suppliers, in order to capitalise on market inefficiencies and 
by identifying value creation and recovery opportunities. 
The team has considerable experience in public markets and 
benefits from a deep and wide network, including our own 
substantial platform across the division. The team’s expertise 
at the smaller end of the public markets enables them to 
apply their differentiated specialist investment approach to 
an underserved part of the market. This has delivered strong 
growth in AUM for the division over the past four years. 

The core funds managed by the team have considerable 
capacity to grow over the next few years.

Public Equity, Ireland

In Ireland, we manage a number of open-ended funds 
including two multi-asset funds, two equity funds and a 
cash fund under our Strategic Equity division. 

Our multi-asset funds, the Gresham House Global Multi-
Asset Fund and the Gresham House Global Thematic 
Multi-Asset Fund are invested across a range of assets 
including equities, bonds, cash, and alternative assets 
such as property, forestry, and infrastructure. Our global 
multi asset funds have 5 stars as ranked by the rating 
agency Morningstar.

The equity funds are value biased in style with the Gresham 
House Global Equity Fund focused on large-cap equities 
within developed markets while the Gresham House Global 
Small Company Fund is focused on international small and 
mid-cap equities.

33

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Divisional Reviews - Strategic Equity

Metrion Biosciences (Metrion) is a contract research 
organisation providing ion channel services to the drug 
discovery market. 

Gresham House Ventures has invested £3.25mn into 
Metrion since 2021 via the Baronsmead VCTs.

34

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Trevor Hope
CIO, VCTs

Private Equity 
£0.9bn AUM as at 31 Dec 2023

Gresham House’s Private Equity strategy is delivered 
through the Gresham House Ventures platform which 
includes the well-known Baronsmead and Mobeus VCTs. As 
the second largest VCT provider in the UK, with a combined 
£0.9 billion of assets, we are an active investment partner to 
over 60 companies. 

The importance of the provision of growth capital alongside 
commercial strategic advice to entrepreneurs is critical for 
global economic growth. The VCT market alongside other 
secondary and growth capital provision from platforms 
such as Gresham House Ventures is necessary to attempt 
to keep the UK pushing forward to generate economic and 
social benefits.  

Our investment team’s track record plus historical 
experience of navigating major market declines 
and recessionary periods provides a good platform 
for identifying, executing and managing high-
quality investments which can become winners in a 
rebounding economy.

Baronsmead VCTs

Baronsmead remains the only VCT brand deploying capital 
into both public and private companies at scale within 
the same fund. This unique strategy gives the two VCTs’ 
portfolios a high level of diversification which we believe 
underpins their ability to support long-term consistent 
dividend payments to shareholders. Since joining the 
Gresham House platform in 2018, the Baronsmead VCTs 
have continued to grow through a combination of their 
distinctive hybrid investment approach and successful 
new share issues. 

At 31 December 2023, the two Baronsmead VCTs have 
a Net Asset Value of £423 million. Since launch (in April 
1998) to 31 December 2023, on a NAV total return 
basis, Baronsmead Venture Trust returned 315.3% and 
Baronsmead Second Venture Trust (from its launch in 
January 2001) delivered 235.1% for shareholders, excluding 
the benefit of investor income tax relief. The Baronsmead 
VCTs closed their 2022/23 £50 million fundraise in early 
2023, and launched a further £50 million fundraise in 
November 2023, which closed in March 2024.

Divisional Reviews - Strategic Equity

Mobeus VCTs

The four Mobeus VCTs have a similar investment mandate 
to the Baronsmead funds trusts but focus solely on 
unquoted companies. The Mobeus VCT business is another 
long-standing, high performing, and well-respected brand in 
the VCT market. 

As at 31 December 2023, the four Mobeus VCTs have a 
Net Asset Value of £360 million. The Mobeus VCTs have 
received exceptional demand from new and existing 
investors in recent years having closed their £76 million 
fundraising in 2023. The NAV total return of the VCTs 
since launch (between January 1999 and July 2004) to 31 
December 2023 ranged from 229.9% to 369.9% excluding 
the benefit of investor income tax relief. 

2023 highlights:
ƒ

We invested £46.0 million:
 – 8 new deals, £31.4 million invested
 – 10 follow-ons, £14.6 million invested
 – Invested in tech, services, healthcare, and ESG
 – Predominantly B2B (other than follow-on 

into TravelLocal)

We are excited by the positive difference that the capital 
we manage can make, as our investee businesses 
scale to create new employment and boost economic 
growth in the UK.

More recently we have launched an Investment Limited 
Partnership fund, the Gresham House Private Equity 
Release LP, for investors in both the UK and Ireland, 
whose stated objective is to provide secondary capital to 
established Gresham House VCT portfolio companies as 
well as allowing partners to invest alongside the VCTs in new 
investments while also pursuing some direct opportunities. 
The LP is £56 million in size.

Gresham House’s substantial Private Equity platform 
and the experienced investors and portfolio managers 
within our Gresham House Ventures team, are well placed 
to continue delivering growth in AUM through strong 
investment performance and fundraising.

35

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
The Group has in place a functional and hierarchical 
separation of its risk management oversight and business 
units, where business units include a portfolio management 
function. Risk ownership and risk oversight are fully 
segregated across the Group. 

Risk culture - the Board sets the right tone at the top 
by supporting a sense of risk ownership and collective 
responsibility for risk management across the employee 
base. A strong risk culture is promoted throughout the 
Group. Accountability for the effectiveness of the Group’s 
risk management systems and internal controls is delivered 
through our ERM Framework and is overseen by the Board 
and the senior management team in accordance with the 
Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR).

Risk identification and prioritisation - the identification 
of the strategic objectives of the Group as a whole and 
supporting business processes include identification 
and assessment of risk events that might impede the 
achievement of business objectives or delivery of 
business processes. 

Our risk identification process delivers a defined risk 
taxonomy which is used to establish the impact and 
likelihood of a risk materialising and the potential 
dimensions of the exposures the Group faces. Our risk 
prioritisation reflects an understanding of risk exposures 
relative to each other and the efficient application of 
resources within the Group. 

Risk appetite, tolerance and limits - the Board sets 
the Group risk appetite which supports the corporate 
strategy and determines the threshold of risks considered 
acceptable. This approach aims to enhance our decision-
making capacity and to reflect the agreed business 
strategy, the business operational systems and controls, 
risk appetite and tolerance, capital resources and threshold 
limits needed to provide early warning signs of a possible 
approach of our risk appetite limits.

Risk Management 

Effective risk management 
Effective risk management is an intrinsic part of delivering 
alternative investment solutions; our comprehensive 
approach to risk management fully embeds sound practices 
into both the management of funds on behalf of end-
investors and the management of Gresham House’s internal 
business operations. Effective risk management is key to 
our success and embedded within the Group’s strategic 
drivers and our culture. 

The Board is responsible for the effective management 
of risks across the business. Risks and opportunities are 
integral to the business model and the Board oversees the 
parameters of acceptable risk taking while encouraging a 
culture of risk ownership and accountability.

Our Enterprise Risk Management Framework (ERM 
Framework) sets out our risk governance structure and 
arrangements for identifying, measuring, monitoring, and 
managing risk and non-financial risk across all aspects of 
our business, ensuring the ongoing management of residual 
risks within our risk appetite across all of our divisions. 

How we manage risk 
Our ERM Framework has been designed to ensure the 
prompt and accurate identification, assessment and 
management of internal and external risks as well as 
evaluation of emerging risks pertinent to the Group. During 
2023, the Board reviewed and approved the annual refresh 
of the ERM policy and key risk management outputs, 
including the Group Risk Register and Risk Appetite 
Statement. There were no material changes to the risk 
tolerances of the business, however the Group Risk Register 
was updated to reflect the changing capital structure of 
the business in December 2023, and the macroeconomic 
impact on certain divisions and funds within the business.

The Gresham House Group approach to risk management 
encompasses the arrangements for the management of 
enterprise-wide risks, and the specific investment risks 
relevant for each fund. 

Risk governance - the Board of Directors is responsible for 
setting our business strategy and the overall management 
of risk within the Group. Our risk governance structure 
is comprised of Board and executive committees, risk 
culture management, second line oversight functions, 
risk appetite and risk ownership roles and responsibilities. 
The Audit Committee considers Group-wide risks at least 
on a biannual basis and makes recommendations to the 
Board. The Board also allocates responsibilities for the 
management of identified risks. 

36

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Risk management and mitigation controls - as part of the 
risk assessment process, controls and mitigation strategies 
are documented for each material risk, with risk owners taking 
ownership of the maintenance and operation of designed 
mitigation controls. The second line risk function supports the 
risk and control self-assessment programme performed by 
risk owners to capture risks, oversee and challenge scenario 
analysis (where combinations of risk factors are assumed to 
vary) and stress testing outputs (where one risk factor, such as 
equity returns, is assumed to vary).

Risk models are an important tool in our measurement of 
risks. They are used to support the monitoring and reporting 
of risk and when evaluating actions deciding what mitigation 
controls are to be implemented. Risk velocity management 
also forms part of our processes and seeks to measure 
how fast an exposure can impact our business units and the 
point at which the organisation first feels its effects.

Risk ownership - as part of our SMCR responsibilities, we 
have allocated risk ownership responsibilities to our senior 
management team and appropriate delegation of the identified 
risks cascades down to risk owners across our business units 
to ensure risks identified are effectively monitored and reported. 
We also ensure that risk owners have the skills, resources, 
knowledge and expertise to manage our business risks.

Risk reporting - risk reporting is an integral part of the ERM 
Framework and takes place at different levels throughout 
the business units, including corporate and portfolio 
management functions.

Each regulated entity and investment fund systematically 
identifies their material, relevant risks and has a limit 
monitoring and reporting framework in place. Fund level 
risk reporting is aggregated at the legal entity level, which 
in turn reports to the Audit Committee and the Board, 
providing the Board members with information necessary 
to assess the management of risks in line with strategic 
objectives, agreed risk tolerances and the effectiveness of 
the control environment. 

The Board and the Audit Committee meet at least bi-
annually to review and, where required, challenge the 
Group’s management of risks and any significant changes 
to the profile of risks including actions being taken to 
mitigate or control key risk exposures. 

ESG risk management - our approach to sustainability is a 
key part of our strategy and our ability to deliver sustainable 
investment considerations is applied across the investment 
process for all asset classes. It involves the integration of 
ESG factors through due diligence screening, engagement, 
governance and risk management, therefore helping 
to formulate a granular picture of the asset, informing a 
coherent engagement strategy which is agreed by each of 
our investment committees. 

Our in-house developed ESG Decision Tool is integrated 
into product governance and investment decision-making 
processes, taking both a top-down and bottom-up risk 
management approach to selecting and assessing our 
business and investment risks and opportunities over the 
short, medium and long-term.

Risk Management 

Pillar II Capital Adequacy assessment 
The regulated entities within the Group undergo an annual 
capital adequacy risk assessment exercise that ensures 
identified risks are quantified and the adequate capital 
maintained to cover the identified risks. 

This exercise considers but it is not limited to: 
ƒ

current and forward-looking assessment of the risks and 
financial position of the entities over a multi-year horizon;

ƒ

ƒ

applicable financial and non-financial risks and the 
effectiveness of internal controls to manage the likelihood 
and/or impact of those risks; and

capital requirements to ensure the financial stability of the 
entities under base case and stressed scenarios.

Following the introduction of the FCA’s Investment Firm 
Prudential Regime (IFPR), the UK regulated investment 
managers are subject to a new prudential regime.

Similar to the Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment 
Process (ICAAP) Gresham House Ireland completes, the 
Internal Capital Adequacy and Risk Assessment (ICARA) 
requires regulated investment firms to demonstrate that 
adequate risk management has been undertaken. Under 
the new ICARA process, greater emphasis is placed on 
the investment firm’s business model, capturing potential 
harms from both the market and our clients. 

The Group regulated entities’ ICAAP and ICARA outputs, 
submitted to their respective regulators, outline the harm 
scenarios considered and the output of our liquidity, capital 
adequacy, and operational resilience stress testing. In 
addition to assessing the financial resources required 
to mitigate the harms posed by the firm, management 
has also considered the adequacy of the firm’s broader 
risk management processes and the Pillar II process 
itself. The Group is satisfied that these processes are 
operating as intended.

37

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
Governance

Governance at Gresham House   
Gresham House Limited is a specialist alternative asset 
management group that provides funds, direct investments 
and tailored investment solutions including co-investment. 
The Group currently advises funds and individual clients 
across a range of investment classes including Strategic 
Equity and Real Assets. 

As per the FCA’s prudential rulebook, Gresham House 
Limited is the parent entity for Gresham House Asset 
Management Limited. 

The entities below include those which have been identified 
as within the regulatory perimeter, forming part of the 
investment firm group, are:

Entity

Summary of activities

SeedBidco Limited

Guernsey based parent company which led the acquisition of Gresham House plc (now 
Gresham House Limited).

Gresham House Limited

UK-based intermediate parent company.

A holding company, with investments in financial sector entities.

Gresham House 
Holding Limited

Gresham House staff are employed by Gresham House Holdings, with staffing costs 
allocated to group entities.

Gresham House Asset Management Limited (GHAM) is regulated as a Collective Portfolio 
Management Investment Firm (“CPMI Firm”), as the firm is regulated both under the 
Alternative Investment Portfolio Managers Directive (“AIFMD”) and as a MIFIDPRU 
Investment firm.

GHAM provides investment management, fund management, investment advisory and 
unregulated services across a range of portfolios covering the following strategies:
ƒ

Housing

Gresham House Asset 
Management Limited

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

ƒ

Forestry

Sustainable Infrastructure

New Energy

Strategic Equity (including both public and private equity)

‘Asset management’ - being the management of physical property (e.g., related to 
management of woodland as part of GHAM’s forestry business line)

GHAM’s managing activities include the direct management of vehicles (AIFs, UCISs) 
as the AIFM, delegated portfolio management for other AIFs, UCITS and NURS funds, 
and commercial management of assets (unregulated). CIS is the overarching term for 
any collective investment scheme – and within the UK they are further broken down as 
AIF’s, UCITS etc.

A Guernsey general partner, regulated by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. As 
such, we have concluded that the entity meets the definition of a financial institution.

Authorised as an AIFM in Ireland. 

Authorised as an AIFM in the UK. ReSI Capital Management Limited was, until Q3 2023, 
the AIFM for Gresham House ReSI LP and ReSI plc, though these funds have since been 
novated to GHAM.

Gresham House 
Investment Management 
(Guernsey) Limited 

Gresham House 
Asset Management 
Ireland Limited

ReSI Capital 
Management Limited

38

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
 
 
The Group Board is ultimately responsible for the effective 
management of risks across the Group and considers the 
effective management of these risks and opportunities as 
central to the achievement of its long-term objectives. 

The Group Board sets the Group’s risk strategy and risk 
appetite after considering recommendations received from 
the Group Audit Committee, performs oversight activity to 
ensure risk is being monitored and controlled effectively, 
is responsible for ensuring that the Group as a whole 
and regulated subsidiaries maintain sufficient capital and 
liquidity resources to meet regulatory capital and liquidity 
requirements, and to support its growth and strategic 
objectives; and promotes an overall culture of effective risk 
management throughout the business. 

The Group Board has three committees: Audit, 
Remuneration, and Investment. The Group Audit Committee 
meets at least biannually to review and, where required, 
challenge the Group’s management of risks and any 
significant changes to the profile of risks including actions 
being taken to mitigate or control key risk exposures. 

The Group Audit Committee considers Group wide risks 
at least biannually and as part of its remit, oversees 
the overall risk management framework effectiveness 
and corporate governance statements relating to risk 
management. The Group Audit Committee review and, 
where required, challenge Risk Owners’ management of 
risks and any significant changes to the profile of risks 
including actions being taken to mitigate or control key 
risk exposures. This means that actions requested by 
the Group Audit Committee are tracked to completion at 
subsequent meetings. A feedback loop exists to ensure 
that where the Group Audit Committee requests additional 
analysis, this is followed through to completion and the 
Group Audit Committee confirms satisfaction with the 
enhancements made.

The Group Audit Committee reviews policies and processes 
for identifying and assessing risk and challenges the 
disclosures on key risks and management’s responses to 
them while evaluating risk opportunities and risk mitigation 
structures, across the business. 

The Group Board delegates risk oversight responsibilities 
in line with defined risk appetite and risk strategy to the 
Boards of the individual Group companies, to promote 
focused oversight of the specific activities and services 
provided by each entity (in particular the regulated asset 
management businesses).

Day-to-day risk management activities are the 
responsibility of the executives and senior management 
team. All material risks within the Group are assigned to 
Risk Owners, Portfolio Managers are responsible for the 
management of the risks facing investment funds in line 
with funds’ rules and governing documents. 

Governance

Regulated subsidiaries
Subsidiary group entities are responsible for implementing 
risk management arrangements and ensuring that their 
risk exposure is managed in line with the Group’s overall 
business objectives and within its stated risk appetite. 
Regulated financial services are provided in the UK primarily 
by GHAM; the GHAM Board provide oversight and approval 
of the process for identifying, evaluating, managing, and 
reporting the significant risks faced by GHAM, and which 
GHAM may represent for the Group. 

GHAM is categorised as “not a small-and-non interconnected 
investment firm” (non-SNI) below the threshold requirements 
set out in the FCA’s MIFIDPRU 7.1.4, and as such GHAM is 
not required to establish a risk committee, remuneration 
committee, or nominations committee.
ƒ

GHAM’s on-balance sheet assets and off-balance sheet 
items over the preceding 4-year period is a rolling average 
of £300 million or less; and 

ƒ

GHAM does not operate a trading book business of over £150 
million, or derivatives book business of over £100 million. 

The GHAM Board meets quarterly, and receives an update 
on risk profile, incidents and breaches, updates in the 
compliance environment, capital adequacy, and other 
relevant metrics and management information.

The GHAM Board of Directors are the members of the 
Group Management Committee, and the Divisional Heads, 
and comprise the senior management of GHAM.

Senior management
Day-to-day risk management activities are the 
responsibility of the senior management team.

The Group Management Committee (GMC), comprising the 
Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Managing 
Director, Chief Legal Officer, and Chief Operating Officer/Chief 
Technology Officer, is responsible for the allocation of resources 
and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the organisation.

All GMC members are GHAM Board Directors. The CEO, 
Managing Director and CFO are also Group Board Directors.

The management team are supported by their functional 
teams, as well as cross-functional committees where required. 
ƒ

Executive / Management committees: chaired by a GMC 
member and comprising individuals with responsibility 
for the day-to-day operations across Gresham House. 
These committees are operational in nature and focus 
on implementing the strategic direction set by the Board, 
handling routine matters, they coordinate activities across 
different departments, and ensure that the organisation’s 
objectives are met efficiently and effectively. 

ƒ

Working Groups: cross-functional forum, typically 
supporting an Executive / Management committee by 
preparing inputs and completing actions delegated from 
the Executive / Management committee. 

39

Gresham House Annual Review 2023 
 
 
 
Governance

Funds overview

New Energy 

Gresham House Secure Income Renewable Energy & Storage LP (SIReS) Collocation (Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) - solar,  wind)

UK up to 20% in non-UK, EEA assets

Limited Partnership

Name

Investment

Geography

Vehicle

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc (GRID)

Battery Energy Storage Systems

Investment Trust

Gresham House Global Energy Transition Fund

Solar, BESS, Wind, Energy Efficiency

North America 30%-50%; EU 20%-

Limited Partnership

Launching in 2024

40%; UK 10%-25%; Australia 0-10%

Housing 

Gresham House Residential Secure Income LP

Gresham House Residential Yield Fund LP

Shared Ownership

Build-to-Rent (BtR)

Gresham House Residential Yield Fund LP and Development

BtR and Development

Forestry

Gresham House Forest Fund VI LP

Residential Secure Income plc

Shared Ownership and Retirement

Mature forestry and woodland creation

Natural Capital

Gresham House Sustainable International Forestry Fund

Native woodland, habitat banks, forestry, peatland restoration

70% commercial forestry, 30% forest carbon with a focus on new 
planting

Gresham House Irish Strategic Forestry Fund

Mature forestry + Woodland creation 

UK, Europe EEA, Australasia, US

Limited Partnership

Launching in 2024

Sustainable Infrastructure

Gresham House British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund III

Private Equity

VCTs

Environment Bank Limited co-invest

GoFibre co-invest

Wildanet co-invest

Fischer Farms co-invest

Gresham House Private Equity Release LP

Baronsmead Venture Trust plc

Baronsmead Second Venture Trust plc

The Income & Growth VCT plc

Mobeus Income & Income Growth VCT plc

Mobeus Income & Income Growth VCT 2 plc

Mobeus Income & Income Growth VCT 4 plc

Public Equity

WS Gresham House UK Micro Cap Fund

WS Gresham House UK Multi Cap Income Fund

WS Gresham House UK Smaller Companies Fund

Strategic Equity Capital plc

40

Resource Efficiency, Decarbonisation, Waste Solutions, 
Regeneration, Health & Education and Digital Inclusion 

Habitat banks (Regeneration)

Altnet (Digital Inclusion)

Altnet (Digital Inclusion)

Hydroponic Farming (Resource Efficiency)

VCT Portfolio companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

UK equities

UK equities

UK equities

UK equities

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

SW

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

Ireland

80% UK, 20% outside 

UK (East Scotland & SW)

UK & Ireland

Limited Partnership

Open

Limited Partnership

Launching in 2024

Limited Partnership

Launching in 2024

Investment Trust

Limited Partnership

Open

Open

TBD

Launching in 2024

Status

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

VCT

VCT

VCT

VCT

VCT

VCT

OEIC

OEIC

OEIC

Investment Trust

Gresham House Annual Review 2023Governance

Funds overview

Name

Investment

Geography

Vehicle

New Energy 

Gresham House Secure Income Renewable Energy & Storage LP (SIReS) Collocation (Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) - solar,  wind)

UK up to 20% in non-UK, EEA assets

Limited Partnership

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc (GRID)

Battery Energy Storage Systems

UK

Investment Trust

Status

Open

Open

Gresham House Global Energy Transition Fund

Solar, BESS, Wind, Energy Efficiency

North America 30%-50%; EU 20%-
40%; UK 10%-25%; Australia 0-10%

Limited Partnership

Launching in 2024

Housing 

Gresham House Residential Secure Income LP

Gresham House Residential Yield Fund LP

Shared Ownership

Build-to-Rent (BtR)

Gresham House Residential Yield Fund LP and Development

BtR and Development

Forestry

Gresham House Forest Fund VI LP

Residential Secure Income plc

Shared Ownership and Retirement

Mature forestry and woodland creation

Natural Capital

Native woodland, habitat banks, forestry, peatland restoration

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

Limited Partnership

Open

Limited Partnership

Launching in 2024

Limited Partnership

Launching in 2024

Investment Trust

Limited Partnership

Open

Open

TBD

Launching in 2024

Gresham House Sustainable International Forestry Fund

70% commercial forestry, 30% forest carbon with a focus on new 

UK, Europe EEA, Australasia, US

Limited Partnership

Launching in 2024

Gresham House Irish Strategic Forestry Fund

Mature forestry + Woodland creation 

planting

Sustainable Infrastructure

Gresham House British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund III

Private Equity

VCTs

Environment Bank Limited co-invest

GoFibre co-invest

Wildanet co-invest

Fischer Farms co-invest

Gresham House Private Equity Release LP

Baronsmead Venture Trust plc

Baronsmead Second Venture Trust plc

The Income & Growth VCT plc

Mobeus Income & Income Growth VCT plc

Mobeus Income & Income Growth VCT 2 plc

Mobeus Income & Income Growth VCT 4 plc

Public Equity

WS Gresham House UK Micro Cap Fund

WS Gresham House UK Multi Cap Income Fund

WS Gresham House UK Smaller Companies Fund

Strategic Equity Capital plc

Resource Efficiency, Decarbonisation, Waste Solutions, 
Regeneration, Health & Education and Digital Inclusion 

Habitat banks (Regeneration)

Altnet (Digital Inclusion)

Altnet (Digital Inclusion)

Hydroponic Farming (Resource Efficiency)

VCT Portfolio companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

Early stage growth companies

UK equities

UK equities

UK equities

UK equities

Ireland

80% UK, 20% outside 

UK

UK (East Scotland & SW)

SW

UK

UK & Ireland

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

UK

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

Limited Partnership

VCT

VCT

VCT

VCT

VCT

VCT

OEIC

OEIC

OEIC

Investment Trust

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

Open

41

Gresham House Annual Review 2023For further information on Gresham House 
please contact the team: 

www.greshamhouse.com