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Back to Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund News – Issue 1

NPIF successfully launches across the 10 LEP areas

In February, the £400m Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund officially opened for business at a launch event in Manchester. We welcomed over 150 leaders from the Northern business community and provided some insight about how this new source of economic development funding will help SMEs across their region.

The Manchester event saw a lively panel discussion from business leaders who spoke about the challenges and the opportunities that SMEs face in the Northern Powerhouse. Lou Cordwell (Magnetic North CEO) chaired the panel and was joined by Keith Morgan (British Business Bank CEO), Andrew Percy (former Northern Powerhouse Minister and Member of Parliament for Brigg and Goole), Roger Marsh OBE (Chair of the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership), Mike Blackburn (Chair of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership) and Cheryl Latham (Brighter World Energy CEO).

Building on the success of the launch, we hosted 10 other events in conjunction with the Local Enterprise Partnerships to ensure our key stakeholders had the necessary tools to put the money to work in their regions. In total, we engaged almost 2,000 businesses, intermediaries and influencers across each LEP area. We are now in a much stronger position to help the region’s businesses to scale-up and become an integral part of the government’s Northern Powerhouse vision.

The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.

Editors Notes