Big Issue Invest hosts Annual Meeting at investee venue EartH

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On Monday 28th January, Big Issue Invest hosted its Fund Management Annual Meeting for the Limited Partners. 40 guests were welcomed to the venue EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney), a multi-arts space in which we invested £600,000 from our Social Enterprise Investment Fund II.

After a welcome from our CEO Danyal Sattar, James Salmon, Head of Direct Investments, talked about the strong team at Big Issue Invest and how he is proud of the young talent that has joined recently. He also spoke about the Social Enterprise Investment Funds I and II and their social and financial performance.

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Lars Hagelmann, Head of Fund Operations and Portfolio Management explained some of the highlights of our Outcomes Investment Fund, showing the current investments and plans for growth.

Gail Gibbons, CEO of Sheffield Futures talked about all that the organisation had achieved during the year and how many young people were supported by its initiatives. She also explained how the relationship with Big Issue Invest and other investors was key to their success.

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Graeme Oram from Five Lamps presented shortly after, saying:

Almost 2 million people out there are finding it harder to access credit”.

He explained how Five Lamps plans to help even more of these people as the organisation grows.

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Auro Foxcroft, founder of  Village Underground, which runs EartH, was the last to present. Auro spoke about how his organisation seeks to bring together both the leading, rising and most important talents of artistic fields under one roof and provide a vital new home for artists of all ages. He also played a video for the audience about the social impact of the organisation. It showed how EartH’s partnership with Community Music will reach young people who are often socially excluded or disengaged from education, to create life opportunities for them through music.

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At the end the formalities, Auro took the crowd on a guided tour of the newly renovated premises. EartH consists of two distinct performance spaces, a concert hall, where we held our meeting and the upstairs theatre which is impressive and grand.

After the event, Big Issue Invest’s CEO Danyal Sattar said:

I’m proud of the team for making the meeting such a big success and grateful to the investees who came along to give such informative presentations”.