Antony Ball

Value Capital Partners (VCP) is an investment company which takes minority positions in listed companies and becomes an engaged shareholder in those entities to drive maximum returns for all stakeholders. ​ VCP has as its founding anchor on the observation often made by public market investors that due to the fragmentation of ownership, companies frequently do not have a stable and long term shareholder base, resulting in “absentee” ownership, and reliance on “checklist” governance. A consequence of this is that, all too often, skilful, considered and forceful ownership is not present at critical junctures in a company’s history. This in turn often leads to ineffective leadership or governance, inefficient holding structures, inefficient use of capital, poor asset allocation, poor asset combinations, and ultimately sub-optimal performance. Herein lies the opportunity – a value gap can arise in these circumstances, by injecting the skilful, considered and forceful ownership that is often lacking. ​ The same logic applies to smaller companies, where the absence of deeply engaged, skilful and forceful shareholders are not present at critical junctures in the development of the company, causing it to miss out on achieving its potential. This contrasts with private equity ownership, where the owners become deeply engaged shareholders. Hence VCP aims to deploy the best of private equity principles in the listed equity space.