7:15pm BST
Presentation #4, for 10 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A with facilitated discussion, by
Brian Basham
Chairman, Equity Development
Brian is a serial ‘start-up’ entrepreneur. He founded and floated The Broad Street Group, which he established after an early career as a financial journalist with the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and The Times. He left The Times to investigate the relationship between organised crime and the City. He became an accredited fund manger as cover for his investigation.
Broad Street specialised in takeover bid communication strategies. It became the ‘go to’ agency both in the UK and the US. It transformed financial public relations and was floated in 1986.
Brian then founded Primrose Care, caring for elderly people in their own homes, it was later sold to BUPA.
He founded Equity Development 25 years ago. It provided research services to smaller companies. He recently sold ED.
Brian also founded ArchOver, which is a unique crowdfunding marketplace lender, facilitating secured and insured loans to companies. It was sold to Hampden Group
He was one of three founders of the Quoted Companies Alliance, he initiated a report for Treasury on Smaller Quoted Companies and wrote the well regarded publication Tomorrow’s Giants, with the former senior Treasury official Craig Pickering.
Brian’s charitable activities include re-establishing Remembrance in the UK in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of World War II. The initiative enabled the Royal British Legion to raise £20m in that year, saving it from probable dissolution. Remembrance, once again, has become a regular feature of British life. He conceived the appeal Coming Home to raise funds for seriously wounded military personnel, which also raised £20m. He stimulated the reactivation of the British Dyslexia Association and has run two marathons to raise funds for Prostate Cancer research.