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Former RPC general manager Keith Ormrod is spearheading a move from Cavendish Management Resources, the venture capital funding and consultancy firm, to secure more business in the packaging sector.

Ormrod spent more than 20 years at RPC and has been consulting since leaving the group last year. He will be targeting packaging companies looking to secure extra investment through Cavendish’s network of financiers, including business angels, as well as offering consultancy and access to government-subsidised grants.

"Going to the bank and getting a loan is more difficult than it was a few years ago," said Ormrod. "Businesses are having to look at a broader range of options in terms of how they raise finance." 

Ormrod said most business angels preferred to take equity in businesses in which they invested. "They are much more interested in equity participation than in a modest percentage of a return on investment," he added.

"There's no shortage of companies coming to them [investors] presenting their case so they are much more likely to go ahead with people willing to give them equity."

Ormrod also said that, in the current economic climate, investors were typically looking to provide finance to "well-established businesses looking for funds for a particular reason, rather than brand new start-ups".

"That might suit the packaging industry," he said. "There are lots of well-established and well-run businesses that for various reasons can't access funding."

Cavendish was set up in 1984, initially as a group of private investors, but now employs 450 executives through 14 regional centres in the UK and Ireland.