Foresight opens Edinburgh office to support £20m Scottish business fund

Foresight Group's Graeme McKinstry (left) and Dan Halliday will be based in the new Edinburgh office. Picture: Contributed

The George Street base is the group’s fifth regional UK office and comes after Foresight was named as a fund manager to the Scottish Growth Scheme (SGS), a £500 million business support package.

The firm has been allocated £20m from the SGS, creating the Foresight Scottish Growth Fund, which offers equity investments of up to £2m, in rounds of up to £10m, to small businesses throughout Scotland. This can be part of a co-investment round with likeminded managers and other Foresight funds.

The SGS came under scrutiny last month after it was revealed that it had paid out just £40m since its launch in 2016.

To support the deployment of the Foresight fund, the investment manager has established a local team in its Edinburgh office.

Dan Halliday has joined as senior investment manager from Rcapital where he provided strategic, financial and operational support to predominantly Scotland-based companies.

Alongside him is investment manager Graeme McKinstry, who previously held a similar role at Par Equity, focusing on early stage venture capital investments.

Russell Healey, head of Foresight private equity, said: “The award of the £20m Foresight Scottish Growth Fund mandate and the opening of our office in Edinburgh has been further validation of our regional investment strategy.”

Foresight made more than 30 investments over the last 12 months and has a portfolio of around 90 companies.