Financiers to discuss intelligent investment in creative industries

Opened by Will Hutton, executive vice chair of The Work Foundation, and closed by Luke Johnson, chairman of Risk Capital Partners, the private conference will bring together 80 of the UK’s leading financiers, investors, fund managers, corporate finance professionals and entrepreneurs to discuss their experiences, frustrations and challenges within creative sector investment. “Traditional finance models which work for other sectors often don’t suit creative businesses striving to move to the next level,” said Caroline Norbury, chief executive of South West Screen. “We want to discuss what’s at the heart of this problem; is it access to finance, does there need to be a new commercial mind set, or does the UK lack a portfolio of approaches to growth?” The creative industries are often described as one of the drivers of our future prosperity, and the recent Budget set out a range of government initiatives and incentives to promote them. This conference will ask; how good an investment are they? Do they just attract people who are driven by their hearts rather than their heads? And, if you do decide to put money into such a fast moving, volatile sector, how do you tell the difference between managing risk - and simply taking risks?