Artemis Fund Managers, a UK-based asset manager with GBP 29 billion of assets under management, has written down its holding in invoice financing platform Urica to zero. Formed in 2014, its founder cited a fraudulent client in France as the primary reason for the platform closing.
Urica was one recipient, alongside Beechbrook Capital and MarketInvoice, of GBP 30 million of government funding back in 2013. Urica’s share was GBP 10 million, which came from the small business tranche of the Business Finance Partnership.
Analysts at Numis Securities say that although there has been a write-down of 4% in relation to the investment in 2018, the company had immediate liquidity requirements due to potential liabilities from a one-off event in France, which we understand was a fraud in its invoice finance book, which led to a deterioration in the quality of Urica’s managed book of invoices. The managers of Artemis Alpha, it added, were unwilling to provide additional funding.
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