Merged PSYBT will ‘double number of companies it grows’

THE departing chief executive of the Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust (PSYBT) has unveiled plans to double the number of “high-growth” companies the charity works with each year once it merges with one of its stablemates.

Mark Strudwick, who retires at the end of the month when PSYBT unites with the Prince’s Trust Scotland, said the enlarged charity will look to grow up to 60 businesses a year so that they could each take on ten or 12 staff.

Strudwick also said the trust would also increase the number of companies set up each year by 25 per cent to around 800. He said the Prince’s Trust’s work in helping disadvantaged young people would widen the PSYBT net and introduce more candidates to its business-creation schemes.

Geoff Leask, PSYBT’s operations director, and Prince’s Trust director Heather Gray met Scottish youth employment minister Angela Constance last week and further meetings are planned with enterprise minister Fergus Ewing to discuss how the charity can help tackle unemployment, Strudwick said.

“About 44 per cent of the young people who start businesses with us have been unemployed for six months or more, so it’s an area we know well,” Strudwick explained.

“Students coming out of universities and colleges are finding that the jobs they expected to be there for them aren’t any more, so about 18 per cent of the PSYBT businesses are being set up by graduates who have the ambition and skills to work for themselves.”

His comments came as a new report passed to Scotland on Sunday shows the 100 biggest businesses set up by PSYBT in its 23-year history have created more than 2,200 jobs and now turn over a collective £157 million a year.

The eight biggest companies – including medical equipment developer Aircraft Medical, craft beer producer BrewDog and Ultimo bra maker MJM International – together turn over £68m.

The report – compiled by Strathclyde University’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and sponsored by Royal Bank of Scotland – found 71 per cent of the firms had been trading for more than five years, while 11 per cent had survived for more than 20 years.

RBS has also unveiled a £100,000 three-year funding package for PSYBT, which includes cash to make grants to start-up companies and support from its business banking team.

Since it was launched by Prince Charles, the Duke of Rothesay, in 1989, PSYBT has invested £37m helping to set up more than 11,000 businesses, more than two-thirds of which were still operating two years later.