Author: Nick Wilson

The UK equity finance market has grown significantly, with £145.3bn invested across 25,002 companies from 2011 to 2025. ​ However, regional disparities persist, with London dominating 47% of deals and 57% of investment value, while regions like the Midlands and Northern

Private debt has emerged as an increasingly important source of corporate financing, yet we know surprisingly little about which firms actually receive it. This study provides the first large-scale analysis of firm-level determinants of private debt financing, drawing on a

This report analyses over 59,000 UK grants from Innovate UK awarded between 2005 and 2023, focusing on the impact of funding on over 14,000 companies.The findings show that companies with Innovate UK funding, when compared to those without such funding,

Our Economics Letters paper https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111941 on equity funded firms is now available online. This paper with and looks at the use of guaranteed loans by potential high growth firms during the Covid period. Equity financing serves as a crucial mechanism for

Our recently published study with Dr Paul Lavery in the Journal of Corporate Finance https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102641 investigates the performance of private equity (PE)-backed companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing their greater resilience compared to closely matched industry counterparts. However, the superior performance was

Dr Paul Lavery (Glasgow University), Prof Nick Wilson: We study the performance of PE-backed companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that PE-backed firms’ sales, employment, and earnings were more resilient compared to closely matched industry peers during the