Colin Walsh..............Crescent's boardroom Player

Here’s a question: How many NI-based businessmen or women are chairmen of PLC’s?

Given the dearth of PLC's around these parts, the answer is very few. But there's one who most people will miss out.

Colin Walsh, Chief Executive of Belfast-based venture capital house Crescent Capital, has another role. He's also chairman of Trafficmaster PLC, a Home Counties-based high technology operation with a £30 million turnover.

His involvement with Trafficmaster - a company which specialises in satellite navigation, vehicle tracking and the like - is a historical one which dates back to his days as a London-based venture capitalist. But it's also a real one at the helm of a progressive PLC…and not many can say that.

Then again, Walsh is a man with plenty of boardroom experience. In his role at Crescent Capital, he sits on the board at Andor Technology, at timber company Balcas and at Kilkeel-based Toughglass.

Dublin-born but Belfast raised and schooled, Colin Walsh drifted into an early civil service career, but found himself working on organisation reviews and re-structures from a relatively early age.

In the mid-1980's, he joined the then Industrial Development Board under Tony Hopkins' leadership as part of a group of MBA students being fast-tracked for management roles in the agency.

While others went to foreign parts, his 'overseas' posting as part of his studies was to the Hambros Advanced Technology Trust VC fund in London. He was supposed to be there fr three months.

"I was a typical arrogant MBA who thought he knew more than everyone else, and I wanted to be a captain of industry," Walsh smiles. "I soon learnt three key things - that I knew nothing, that 1988 was no time to be a captain of industry, and that venture capital was the place for me."

"VC meant that I could get my fingers into all sorts of businesses without having to get bogged down on day to day operational stuff. It was perfect!"

The inevitable net result was that he stayed in London, having negotiated a release from the IDB scheme with Tony Hopkins himself…leaving with Hopkins' blessing.

"I was a really exciting place to work, the ride of all rides." he remembers. "We dealt with a whole raft of early stage investments, including a little company called Vodafone!" Another company he worked closely with at that time was the fledgling Trafficmaster.

To cut a longer story short, some years later he learnt that the IDB was on the hunt for someone to put together and run a new venture fund for Northern Ireland. The first role was to take the £7 million public stake and double it to create a £14 million VC pot.

And so it came to pass that in 1995, a big ceasefire year for Northern Ireland, he found himself back in Belfast raising the £7 million needed.

"Given the buzz around in those days, it wasn't too difficult to persuade some of the institutions to channel some money in our direction," he says.

Crescent Capital's No. 1 Fund was born with £14 million at its disposal and it has since invested in a range of NI-based companies - with an approximate 50:50 split between manufacturing and technology.

Included are the afore-mentioned Andor, Balcas and Toughglass along with Amtec Medical, TriVirix International, Heartsine Technologies, Gendel, Provita and Lagan. Typical investments have been between £250,000 and £1 million.

The Crescent team is now working on a Crescent No. 2 Fund which is due to be launched soon.

Colin Walsh doesn't make any bones about how he sees the role of venture capital.

"You could say that we are into picking winners and talent management," he says. "Byt you could also say that we have a fairly Darwinian function."

"Over the 10-year lifespan of a VC investment, we've got to encourage and grow the winners we've chosen, and choke off the losers. Brutal it might be, but it's a fact of VC life."

"There are those who've said that lemons ripen faster than plums, and there's a lot of truth in that. Our success or failure depends a lot of being able to tell the difference between the lemons and the plums as early as possible."

Like most other venture capitalists, he's quick to emphasise that investment isn't just about pumping money into a venture and then watching from a distance.

"It's about trying to play a part and offer as much practical help as possible. It's about encouragement and it's about partnership. I've lived the life for quite a few years now and I wouldn't swap the VC buzz for anything."

It's a well known fact that Northern Ireland is hardly a traditional hotbed of venture capital activity. In fact, we lag comfortably behind other areas in terms of take-up.

"The old grants structure here used to virtually eliminate the need for equity," says Colin Walsh. "But that is changing fast, and as it changes, venture capital can play an increasing role in economic development and the creation of stakeholder value."

"There's no doubt that it is a more important part of the arsenal of economic development than ever before."

"What's more, it will work well in the new era of public private sector partnerships."

If venture capital can be something of a rollercoaster ride, much the same can be said of Walsh's role as a non-exec director and then chairman of Trafficmaster.

"At the height of the technology boom, the company was worth a billion pounds. Then, when things changed, we were looking at 7p a share. There's a lesson in there which is always worth remembering."

The company is back on a stable footing now and making progress in the marketplace with its high-tech products and services, which include a Smartnav system fitted by car makers like BMW, Citroen and Jaguar; a traffic data system which alerts motorists to traffic problems and can route them accordingly; the RAC Trackstar stolen vehicle tracking network and Teletrac, a vehicle fleet tracking service.

"The company has some leading edge products and lots of potential. It has had its ups and downs through the years, but the potential easily outweighs any of those problems., We're very excited about what can happen."

Links - www.crescentcapital.co.uk <http://www.crescentcapital.co.uk>

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