Layout 1 copy - ProVen VCTs · CognoLink's management team during this exciting period." Emmanuel Tahar, Chief Executive, CognoLink, said: "CognoLink has seen fantastic growth over

Skills Matter

Beringea invests £3 million

in Tech City company

www.beringea.co.uk & www.provenvcts.co.uk

ProVennews

Winter 2013 Magazine for the ProVen VCTs

New Investment

InSkin Media

Page 4

New Investment

CognoLink

Page 2

New Share Offers

Page 11

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The ProVen VCTs have invested£3 million of equity funding intoCognoLink, a leading primaryresearch firm.

CognoLink specialises inproviding expert networkservices, facilitatingconsultations between its clientsand industry specialists who candeliver vital insights to supportkey investment decisions.

The investment will be used toaccelerate the company'sinternational expansion and todevelop new streams ofbusiness, with a focus ondelivering innovative primaryresearch solutions to investors.The funding has been providedby three of the VCTs: ProVenVCT, ProVen Growth & IncomeVCT and ProVen Health VCT.

CognoLink was founded inLondon in 2007 by two formerBain & Company consultants -Emmanuel Tahar and Rodolphede Hemptinne. Since then, thecompany has grown rapidly andnow has offices in New York,Shanghai, Hong Kong and NewDelhi as well as its Londonheadquarters. This globalcoverage positions CognoLink asthe top choice for investors inNorth America, Europe and Asiawho are looking to make

informed investment decisionson international markets.

Stuart Veale, Managing Partnerat Beringea, led the deal and hasjoined CognoLink’s board. Stuartcommented: "The use of expertnetworks and primary researchto support investment decisionsonly started in the 1990's buthas now become embedded inthe research processes of assetmanagers and consultancy firms,with a total market size this yearapproaching $500 million.CognoLink has established itselfas one of the leading players inthe sector and is very wellpositioned to continue itsexceptional rate of expansion,supported by this investmentfrom Beringea. I am lookingforward to working with

CognoLink's management teamduring this exciting period."

Emmanuel Tahar, ChiefExecutive, CognoLink, said:"CognoLink has seen fantasticgrowth over the last five years,and this injection of capital fromBeringea will allow us to executeon new initiatives, cementingour position as a leadingprovider of primary research.With a successful track recordbacking companies in theinformation services sector,Beringea will be an invaluablepartner as we expand our globalfootprint and develop ourplatform of services."

For more information:www.cognolink.com

Emmanuel Tahar - CEO, CognoLink

Emmanuel has led the company from its inception tobecome a leading research provider to the financialservices industry. In his current role, he is responsiblefor defining the company's strategic objectives and forexecuting its development plan.

Prior to founding CognoLink, Emmanuel held severalpositions at Bain & Company in Europe and NorthAmerica, leading consulting projects for largetechnology corporations and for a wide range offinancial investors. He developed significant experienceof strategic issues associated with private equityinvestment, with a focus on commercial due diligence.

CognoLink£3m investment in leading primary research firm

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Welcome to ProVen News Welcome to the latest edition ofProVen News. This editionincludes a round-up of some ofthe key developments for theProVen VCTs during 2012, as wellas reviewing the outlook for thecoming year.

One of the key events for theVCTs in 2012 was theintroduction of changes to theVCT investment rules, whichcame into effect from April.These changes have significantlyincreased the size of companieswhich VCTs can invest in and alsothe amount they can invest.More information on thesechanges is given in the article byBeringea’s Sales Director, ShaneElliott, on page 10.

The ProVen VCTs took advantageof these changes when theyinvested £3 million in CognoLink,a leading provider of primaryresearch services to investmentcompanies and their advisers.CognoLink has grown from astart-up in 2007, to a companyemploying over 100 people infive offices on three continents.The investment from the ProVenVCTs will enable CognoLink totake advantage of opportunitiesto continue its impressivegrowth. More details ofCognoLink are on page 2.

CognoLink was one of three newinvestments completed in thefinal quarter of 2012, the othertwo being InSkin Media andSkills Matter. InSkin Media takesadvantage of the increasingamount of time internet usersspend viewing on-line videos, toprovide innovative brandadvertising solutions. SkillsMatter is at the forefront ofleading edge software trainingand is at the heart of Tech City,the technology cluster basedaround Old Street roundabout inEast London, which recently

received a £50 million boostfrom Government investment.These two companies arereviewed in more detail on pages4 and 6&7.

Despite the generally lacklustreperformance of the overall UKeconomy in 2012, small andmedium sized businesses ingrowing market sectors havebeen able to prosper. One of theoutstanding performances fromamong the ProVen VCTs’portfolio companies was fromThink, which was named theUK’s fastest growing digitalagency in 2012 with anexpansion rate of nearly 150%.Some of the other achievementsof portfolio companies arecovered on pages 8 and 9.

With the tighter restrictions onpensions announced by theChancellor in December 2012, anincreasing number of investorsare turning to VCTs as analternative way of saving fortheir retirement. For thoseshareholders consideringtopping-up their VCTinvestments, both ProVen VCTand PGI VCT will have shareoffers open in the run-up to theend of the tax year. More detailsof these can be found on page11.

We enter the New Year with astrong pipeline of opportunitiesfor the ProVen VCTs to invest inexciting, rapidly growing UKcompanies. I am looking forwardwith enthusiasm to another yearof both new investments anddevelopments in the portfolio.Finally, I would like to take thisopportunity to wish all theProVen VCTs’ shareholders andtheir families a healthy andprosperous 2013.

Stuart Veale Managing Partner

Stuart Veale

Managing Partner

Beringea LLP

3www.beringea.co.uk & www.provenvcts.co.uk

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InSkin MediaProVen VCTs invest £2 million in innovative online advertising company

In October Beringea led a £2million investment round intoInSkin Media – an innovativedigital advertising businesswhich specialises in online video.

Video content is increasinglybecoming a mainstream featureof internet users’ onlineexperience. This is having farreaching consequences forcontent publishers andadvertisers alike – resulting in arise of strategically brandedvideo featuring at the heart ofmany advertising campaigns.

InSkin Media offers a number ofad formats including: i-Roll, aninteractive video ad that playsfor a short period before a video,PageSkin, an interactive displayad that wraps around an entirewebpage and its signatureproduct InSkin Video, aninteractive online display ad thatwraps around a video - as shownin the picture above.

By becoming part of the users’viewing experience, InSkin Videois able to offer clients superbbrand exposure for the durationof the video - coupled with anexcellent viewing experience forthe user (the format is extremelyuser friendly) - resulting insignificantly higher click-throughrates than the industry average.

InSkin Media is headed by HugoDrayton, who planned and

launched Telegraph MediaGroup’s digital offering in 1994.The agency launched itscommercial activities in 2009and today has 36 staff withoffices in London, Stockholm anda recently launched office inHamburg.

This year InSkin Media willdeliver 500 advertisingcampaigns through its network.

InSkin Media’s online advertisingformats deliver high yields formany of the UK’s biggest qualitypublishers and contentdistributors, including IPC Media,The Telegraph, VideoJug, TheIndependent, Future Publishingand Channel 4 whilst alsoproviding outstandingly effectivebrand campaigns for blue-chipcompanies such as AmericanExpress, Disney, Marks andSpencer, Samsung and Ford.

The company will use the ProVenVCTs’ growth capital investmentto further expand its UKoperations, develop additionaltechnology formats includingmobile (to complement its newPageSkin Tablet format) andbuild on internationalopportunities.

In May 2012 InSkin Media won 3prestigious prizes at theinaugural British Media Awards,and also won MediaMomentum's Award as thefastest-growing digital businessin Europe in 2011.

Trevor Hope, Chief InvestmentOfficer, Beringea, commented: “We have a strong track recordof investment in the mediasector, and are keen to backsmall, private UK-based mediacompanies such as InSkin Media.InSkin has a defined marketoffering, an experiencedmanagement team and cleargrowth aspirations. We aredelighted to be working withHugo, who has exactly the rightskillset to take InSkin Media intoits next stage of growth.”

Hugo Drayton, CEO, InSkinMedia, added: “We are excitedto be collaborating withBeringea, whose successfulhistory and knowledge of digitalmedia will complement InSkinMedia’s strengths. Beringea isthe ideal partner for InskinMedia; we look forward toworking together to build asuccessful internationalbusiness.”

Hugo Drayton - CEO, InSkin Media

Prior to InSkin Media, Hugo spent 2 years as CEO of thebehavioural targeting specialist, Phorm, following 2years as European Managing Director ofAdvertising.com, the world’s largest digital ad network,owned by AOL/Time Warner.

Hugo spent 10 years at The Telegraph Group, asManaging Director of the Group, and previously as thecompany’s Marketing Director and New Media Director.He also served on the boards of several media anddigital businesses, including handbag.com, Newsplayer(now Catalyst Media), Stream Group and Whittard ofChelsea plc.


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Eagle-iProVen VCT, ProVen Growth & Income VCT, and ProVen Planned Exit VCT have invested£1m into Eagle-i Music Ltd, a recently formed music publishing subsidiary of existingportfolio company Eagle Rock Entertainment Group Ltd.

Publishing remains one of the most lucrative and valuable areas within the musicindustry, in part due to lower reliance on physical goods for revenues.

Eagle-i is a natural progression for Eagle Rock, which already provides an extensive range of audio visual andancillary services for thousands of well known artists and musicians, including Grammy award winners suchas The Rolling Stones and The Doors. Eagle Rock has invested significant resources into Eagle-i Music, whichhas closed over 20 publishing deals in the first months of operation. Several groups signed by Eagle-i arealready well established – including Slow Club pictured.

Long Eaton HealthcareProVen Planned Exit VCT has invested £400,000 in the creation of a new pharmacy, LongEaton Healthcare Limited, to be sited within the busy Moir Medical Centre in Long Eaton,near Nottingham.

The Moir Medical Centre’s GPs will host the new pharmacy with help from CommunityPharmacies, a company which specialises in establishing and managing pharmaciesbased in GP centres. Community Pharmacies is backed by three other VCTs managed byBeringea; ProVen Health VCT, ProVen VCT, and ProVen Growth and Income VCT. This pre-existing relationship has created the opportunity for ProVen Planned Exit VCT to invest inLong Eaton Healthcare.

Long Eaton Healthcare will benefit from the expertise that Andrew Murray brings fromCommunity Pharmacies. He has a track record in managing pharmacy chains andfounded Community Pharmacies in 2010.

Cross SolarProVen Growth & Income VCT, ProVen VCT and ProVen Planned Exit VCT have invested £2.5 million in CrossSolar, a residential rooftop solar energy company managed by ISIS Solar. ISIS is a leading UK rooftop solarenergy provider focused on social housing and small commercial installations, offering free electricity,installation and maintenance to homeowners in exchange for the income generated from the Governmentbacked feed-in-tariff scheme for production of renewable energy. The funding will support Cross Solar ininstalling up to 1.4MW of power across up to 400 rooftops.

Karen McCormick, Investment Director at Beringea, led the deal and has joined the board as a Non-Executive Director. Commenting on the deal Karen said: "We are delighted to be working with the ISIS

management team in Cross Solar. ISIS has avery strong track record and is one of the mostexperienced small-scale solar energydevelopers in the UK. Solar is a sensiblealternative to our unsustainable dependenceon fossil fuels, and we believe residential solarenergy represents a strong commercialinvestment, supported by the Government'sfeed-in-tariff."

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The ProVen VCTs have invested£3 million in Skills Matter,Europe’s largest provider of opensource and agile training andevents. Skills Matter is based inClerkenwell and plays an integralrole in the growing technologycluster in this part of EastLondon, known as Tech City.

In December 2012, the PrimeMinister announced £50m ofinvestment in a visionary projectto regenerate the area around

the Old Street roundabout, whichwill see it transformed intoEurope’s largest indoor civicspace, dedicated to start-ups andentrepreneurs in East London. Inthe same announcement, MrCameron also highlighted theProVen VCTs’ investment in SkillsMatter as one of several majorinvestment commitments to TechCity.

Skills Matter helps its 35,000strong developer community

learn and share skills to writebetter software. The new fundingwill be used to provide evenmore opportunities for itscommunity to collaborate withthe world's top technologyexperts through expert talks,meet-ups, training courses andhackathons (an event whereprogrammers and other expertscollaborate intensively, but for ashort period, on one softwareproject).

Skills MatterPrime Minister highlights ProVen VCTs’ investment as a major commitment toTech City.



Since its foundation in 2003, ithas been Skills Matter's vision toprovide “the go-to space forsoftware professionals inEurope” – driving softwareinnovation by bringing smart andcreative people together in anenvironment that encouragesconversation and collaboration,resulting in some great ideas.Skills Matter’s training coursesgenerate valuable onlinecontent, which is shared via theirSkillsCast video and its quarterlymagazine – the Open SourceJournal.

Following recent support fromcompanies like BlackBerry,SpringSource and Novoda, SkillsMatter has been able to opendedicated technology labs andoffers shared desk and smalloffice facilities to thoseinnovative software start-upsthat want to be close to wherethe action is.

Wendy Devolder, CEO andfounder of Skills Matter, said:“Beringea's £3 millioninvestment will help us achieveour mission to firmly establishthe UK as the number 1 place tolearn and contribute to softwareinnovation. In 2013, we’rerunning over 2,000 advancedtechnology events, bringing

leading thinkers and technologyexperts from across the globe tothe UK, to share their ideas andinventions.”

She continued: “We areexpecting to announce somemore sponsors soon, who willinvest in Tech City by workingwith us on some pretty coolinitiatives to help London'sSoftware Community learn,collaborate and share skills."

Trevor Hope, Chief InvestmentOfficer of Beringea said: "I amvery proud of our investment inSkills Matter. Advanced softwareskills are and will continue to bekey to ensuring that the UK isglobally competitive. SkillsMatter's approach to sharingskills, training and collaborationis at the heart of softwareinnovation and opportunity.Wendy is an outstanding CEOand her commitment todeveloping Skills Matter hasallowed her to grow a highlyengaged community and strongrelationships with leadingtechnologists and innovativesoftware companies around theworld. With our help we intendto firmly establish Skills Matteras the place to be for softwareinnovation in Europe."

For more information:www.skillsmatter.com

Wendy Devolder - CEO, Skills Matter

Wendy is founder and CEO of Skills Matter. Anentrepreneur and advocate for the benefits brought bytechnological innovation, Wendy founded Skills Matterin order to channel her commitment to continuouslearning, progressive (often open source) technologiesand agile principles.

As a result, Skills Matter has nurtured the growth of acommunity of enterprise software developers that nowstands at 35,000 strong and counting, who meet at theSkills Matter exchange to learn and share skills with theultimate goal of writing better software. Wendy is alsothe Publisher of the Open Source Journal, the leadingprint journal for open source and agile technologies.

The Prime Minister as he announces the

£50million regeneration project


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TH_NK2012 was a quite extraordinary year for digitalagency TH_NK and has seen them win some ofthe most exciting new clients in the onlinespace, as well as deliver some of the year’smost celebrated projects.

In November, Warner Bros. UK appointed TH_NK as their digital strategy lead. The appointment extendsTH_NK’s relationship with Warner Bros. (the agency has been carrying out consultative work since last year)and TH_NK will now be working with Warner’s agency roster to plan and execute a new vision for digitalmarketing and communications across all of their divisions.

In October 2012 the agency announced it had won the contract with global online retailer ASOS and will nowwork on a strategic project for the fashion and beauty firm designed to ‘set the pace for their digital future’.

These new contracts follow the recent appointment by Channel 4 to create an innovative multi-mediastorytelling experience for its new drama, Utopia. Utopia is a cutting edge project where elements of theshow’s plot will be fully integrated digitally.

The agency’s Pottermore website, created for JK Rowling (and reported in the previous issue of ProVen News)was named as one of the top 50 websites of the year by TIME magazine and, perhaps unsurprisingly, TH_NKhas been named the fastest growing digital agency in the UK by Marketing and Campaign’s 2012 digital agencyleague table. The agency has seen stellar growth of 149% during 2012.

PolyThericsProVen Health VCT portfolio company PolyTherics Limited, a provider of solutions for the development ofbetter biopharmaceuticals, and Pro Bono Bio Group plc (PBB), the international healthcare group, haveannounced progress on their haematology alliance. They are now able to produce longer-acting versions ofblood factor proteins used in blood clotting.

The lead programme, a modified factor IX (part of a complex chain reaction to create clots) has shown goodtechnical and scientific progress. The parties have extended their agreement to actively pursue thedevelopment of a further blood clotting factor product, TheraPEGTM Factor VIIa.

In addition, encouraged by the results achieved with these two programmes they have embarked on afeasibility study to assess the potential of developing a TheraPEGTM factor VIII product. This is the third dealsigned within eighteen months with PBB.

Pro Bono Bio Group and PolyTherics have been working together to develop a longer-action version of FactorVIII, VIIIa and IX using PolyTherics’ TheraPEGTM technology to join poly(ethylene) glycol (known as “PEG”) tothe protein. Pro Bono Bio Group successfully completed a pre-clinical pharmacology study with TheraPEGTMFactor IX in 2011. Based on the results, PolyTherics has now transferred its TheraPEGTM PEGylation processfor this protein to Pro Bono Bio’s bio-manufacturing affiliate. This will enable the production of largerquantities of this longer-acting blood clotting factor to be tested for further development.

PolyTherics has also signed a licensing deal with Nuron and is in discussion with a dozen other companiesabout utilising its technology either to extend the duration of action of drugs or to improve the efficiency ofexisting drugs in the field of oncology where its boosts the activity of antibodies by loading cyctotoxins tothem.

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FjordProVen portfolio company Fjord, a leading user-centricdigital service design consultancy, works with companiesto design breakthrough experiences that make complexsystems simple and elegant.

Fjord has officially opened its doors in downtown SanFrancisco. With its experience in mobile and marqueeclients including Flickr, Foursquare, Citi and Skype, Fjord“aims to disrupt the current design consultancyecosystem, bringing its unique approach to user focused digital service design to the West Coast.”

The San Francisco office joins an established global network, with existing offices in New York and acrossEurope in London, Stockholm, Helsinki, Berlin, Madrid and Istanbul.

Mahin Samadani, Executive Director, Business Development, Fjord, comments: "The San Francisco office fitsinto our global growth strategy and we're thrilled to be combining our digital native expertise with a plethoraof opportunities on the West Coast. It's an incredibly exciting market for us and we're looking forward toexecuting the very best in service design with brands that want to be progressive about their digital future."

Fjord has also announced the appointment of Shelley Evenson as Executive Director, Organisational Evolution.Shelley will lead initiatives to create a flexible learning organisation, grow talent, and advance innovativeknowledge sharing practices across the company.

Espresso EducationPortfolio company Espresso Group, a leading publisher of digital resources for teaching and learning acrossprimary and secondary education, is upgrading its services to run on tablet computers and a range of mobiledevices. Espresso has made this transition in order to respond to, and anticipate, customer needs, as newtechnologies are embraced in education, both inside and outside the classroom.

With work already well-advanced, the first previews of content will be unveiled at January’s BETT 2013education show in London and at FETC 2013 in Florida.

Lewis Bronze, CEO and Founder of Espresso commented on the initiative: “We continually strive to deliverservices in a format that is in tune with how schools wish to use technology. This upgrade project is a massiveand important undertaking that the company has been working on which will ensure our services continue tomeet the needs of teachers and studentsacross the globe.”

Through its brands that include Espresso,Clipbank, Channel 4 Learning and theEducation Clip Library, Espresso Groupspecialises in taking educational conceptsand applying a ‘real world’ context tosupport understanding through acombination of video and multimediaresources. Each service is aligned to thecurricula followed by schools in the marketit serves.

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A higher level of interest ininvesting in VCTs is expected thisyear, because of the proposedchanges to pension schemes. Inthe annual Autumn Statement,the Government said that itwould limit the availability of taxrelief for pension saving bylowering the two key limits to taxallowances. From April 2014, theannual contribution to a pensionon which tax relief can beclaimed will reduce from £50,000to £40,000, and the lifetime capon pension savings will be cut to£1.25 million.

VCTs offer an interesting way ofsupplementing traditionalpension saving. Investors caninvest up to £200,000 per taxyear into VCTs and obtain incometax relief of 30% on theirinvestment in the year of

subscription. Furthermore, theincome is not subject to incometax, unlike the income from apension. To retain the tax reliefinvestors must not dispose of theshares for at least 5 years. VCTsalso offer a way of investing in aportfolio of small and mediumsized private companies, a sectorwhich provides diversificationfrom the larger, quotedcompanies that many pensionsaving schemes invest in andwhich private investors wouldotherwise find difficult to access.

Investments in VCTs is notsuitable for everyone, however,and anyone considering aninvestment in a VCT should takeprofessional advice first.

From 1st January 2013, new rulesconcerning financial adviser

remuneration came into effect,as a result of the RetailDistribution Review (RDR).

Authorised intermediaries thatprovide investment advice toclients will no longer be able toreceive commission fromfinancial product providers. Infuture, they will have to agree afee for their advice with theirclients. This has resulted in somechanges to the applicationprocedure for VCTs.

Shane ElliottSales Director, Beringea

VCT Sector Focus

We are pleased to advise thatthe directors of both ProVen VCTand ProVen Growth and IncomeVCT have recommended anenhanced share buyback (ESB)to their respective shareholders.

The ESB for each Companyprovides a means for existingshareholders to apply to tendersome or all of their existingordinary shares (subject toscaling back) to the Company atthe last published net assetvalue, with the sales proceedsbeing used to subscribe for newordinary shares in the Company.The new shares will besubscribed for at a smallpremium above net asset valueto contribute towards the costsof the ESB. The ESB thereforeprovides a shareholder with theopportunity to retain almost allof his or her investment in theCompany, while obtaining new

VCT income tax relief of up to 30per cent of the amountsubscribed. The newsubscription can be for the taxyears 2012/13 and/or 2013/14.

All shareholders may participatein the ESB but should consultwith their adviser as to whetherit is appropriate for them to doso. Shareholders who dispose oftheir existing shares within 5years of the date of their originalinvestment in the Company arelikely to have to repay anyincome tax relief originallyobtained. Similarly, shareholderswho participate in the ESB willhave to retain their new sharesfor 5 years to avoid forfeiting theincome tax relief obtained. TheESB may also not be suitable forshareholders who deferredcapital gains on their originalinvestment into the Company.

Each ESB will be subject to boththe approval of HMRC that thenew ordinary shares to be issuedqualify for income tax relief andshareholder approval by theCompany at a general meetingto be convened. Further details,including a circular and ESBapplication form, will be sent toProVen VCT and ProVen Growthand Income VCT shareholders inFebruary 2013.

Steven Tuckley Chief Financial Officer, Beringea

Enhanced share buyback offer further tax relief



1111www.beringea.co.uk & www.provenvcts.co.uk 11

“ProVen VCT and PGIVCT’s historicperformances havebeen excellent. Theexisting matureportfolios willprovide investorswith immediateaccess to potentialdividend streams.These are highlyrated generalistoffers.”

Martin Churchill

Tax Efficient Review

January 2013

(rating 85/100)

Beringea, the Manager of the ProVen VCTs, has recently been seeing a strong flow ofnew opportunities to invest in smaller, private companies with the potential forrapid growth. To make sure that ProVen VCT and ProVen Growth & Income VCT (PGIVCT) have sufficient funds available to be able to take full advantage of theseopportunities, and to allow new and existing shareholders to make tax efficientinvestments in these established VCTs, their boards of directors have decided tooffer further shares for subscription.

Following a successful share offer in 2012 which raised c. £13m, the ProVen VCTOffer for the 2012-13 tax-year is being limited to £4 million only. This offer openedon 19 November 2012 and at the time ProVen News went to press, had alreadyraised nearly 50% of its target. PGI VCT, on the other hand, is making a fullprospectus offer to raise up to £15 million. This is expected to be launched at theend of January 2013. An investment in a VCT is not suitable for everyone however.Please refer to the Risk Warning on Page 12.

Some of the key features of both offers are as follows:

Opportunity to invest in established VCT portfoliosProVen VCT and PGI VCT both have portfolios of over 30 small and medium sizedprivate companies which the Manager has selected as having, in its opinion, thepotential for rapid growth. Beringea intends to sell a number of these companiesover the next 2-3 years, in order to support dividend payments to shareholders,although there is no certainty that these company sales will be achieved.

Potential for tax-free income from dividend paymentsThe average annual dividend yields from ProVen VCT and PGI VCT over their last fivefinancial years were 8.4% and 6.6% of net asset value respectively, althoughdividends paid by the VCTs in the past are no guide to future dividend payments.The boards of both VCTs have agreed a target of paying annual dividends equatingto a yield of c. 5% p.a., although this is an objective only and no guarantee of anylevel of dividend payment is given or implied.

Excellent track records of returns to investorsThe original share issues of both VCTs are the best performing VCT issues of theirrespective launch years.* Investors in the original ProVen VCT share issue in 2000have received a total return of 165p for each 100p invested (not counting any taxrelief obtained), including tax free dividends of 114p per 100p invested. Thecorresponding figures for PGI VCT’s original share issue in 2001 are a total return of202p, including tax-free dividends of 152p, per 100p invested. However past returnsfrom ProVen VCT and PGI VCT are no guide to future returns from these VCTs.

Loyalty discounts for shareholders in one of the ProVen VCTsExisting investors in ProVen VCT will benefit from a 2% discount to the Offer Price onany investment in the ProVen VCT Offer, while existing shareholders in all otherProVen VCTs will receive a 1% discount. Existing investors in PGI VCT whoseapplication to invest in PGI VCT is received by 1st March 2012 will receive a 2%discount to the Offer Price, while existing shareholders in any other ProVen VCTwhose application is received by that date will receive a 1% discount. In all cases thediscount will be given in the form of additional shares.

*Source: www.taxefficentreview.com as at January 2013, based on annual rate of return since launch

For more information about the Offers contact Beringea on 0207 845 7820 or

email [email protected] or visit www.provenvcts.co.uk

New Share Offers

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Risk Warning

An investment in ProVen VCT or ProVen Growth & Income VCT should be based on all the information in the OfferDocument or Securities Note respectively, particularly the Risk Factors sections. These documents are availablefrom Beringea or your IFA.

Venture capital trusts are not suitable for all investors. If you are in any doubt about the suitability of aninvestment in a VCT you should consult an authorised Independent Financial Adviser. The sale of VCT shares within5 years will result in the loss of the initial tax relief, so an investment in a VCT should be considered a long-terminvestment. The value of shares in a VCT may fluctuate and you may not get back the amount you invested. Thereis no certainty as to the level of dividends. You may have difficulty selling your shares and any sale is likely to be ata discount to the net asset value. VCTs invest in a portfolio of small companies, which by their nature carry greaterrisk than larger, quoted companies. The dividends paid to shareholders may exceed the VCT’s net income frominvestment (after the cost of running the VCT) in which case the net asset value per share may fall. A significantproportion of each VCT’s net assets is concentrated in three investments (25% for ProVen VCT and 21% for PGI VCT,as at November 2012) although raising funds under the offers will reduce these concentrations. The futureperformance of these tax reliefs available are dependent on ProVen VCT and ProVen Growth & Income VCTmaintaining their status as VCTs. The future performance of these investments will therefore have a materialinfluence on the investment performance of the Ordinary Shares. The tax reliefs available are dependent onProVen VCT and ProVen Growth & Income VCT maintaining their status as VCTs. This financial promotion has beenapproved by Beringea LLP.

For more information please call us on

0207 845 7820, or email [email protected] or visit www.provenvcts.co.uk

Write to: ProVen News, 39 Earlham Street, London, WC2H 9LT

London Office 39 Earlham Street

London

WC2H 9LT

t:+44 (0) 207 8457 820

f:+44 (0) 207 8457 821

e: [email protected]

Detroit Office 32330 W.12 Mile Road

Farmington Hills

Michigan 48334

t:+1 248 489 9000

f:+1 248 489 8819

e: [email protected]

This newsletter has been approved by Beringea LLP (“Beringea”). The information and opinions contained herein were prepared by Beringea. The

information herein is believed by Beringea to be reliable and has been obtained, where possible, from public sources believed to be reliable.

However, Beringea makes no representation as to the accuracy or completeness of such information. Copyright© January 2013 Beringea LLP.

FRN496358, Beringea is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Beringea LLP’s registered office is 39 Earlham Street, London,

WC2H 9LT.

Beringea is an international private equity firm with offices in London and Detroit


Documents

Layout 1 copy - ProVen VCTs · CognoLink's management team during this exciting period." Emmanuel Tahar, Chief Executive, CognoLink, said: "CognoLink has seen fantastic growth over