06 December 2017 
Karel Thomas, Executive Director
Well, from Oxford actually, it's the Sale of the Century! With apologies to readers too young to appreciate that reference, all you need to know is that the University of Oxford has issued a £750M bond with 100 year maturity date, paying just over 2.5% for the money. Oxford enjoys a credit rating higher than the British government's and the university could have sold the debt three times over, according to Bloomberg reports.
This happened in the same week that the university launched its 150th spin-out company, which might have pleased the Universities minister, Jo Johnson, who used quite a lot of his speech to this year's HEFCE Conference to talk about the UK's record on university spin-outs. This week, law firm Penningtons Manches published a report and analysis of equity investment and public grants awarded to academic spinouts between 1 January 2011 – 1 November 2017, with a focus on the investment trends of 2016. The report, which builds on work begun in the Westminster government's consultation Financing Growth in Innovative Firms, published as part of the Patient Capital Review, is really worth reading if you need a quick-start guide to university spin-out activity. The more you read though, the more likely you are to be intrigued enough to visit PraxisAuril's website where you will find lots of information and learning opportunities.
In related news, Alice Frost and Hamish McAlpine at HEFCE have written about the process for developing the metrics for the new Knowledge Exchange Framework. The initial call for evidence is open on the HEFCE website until the 30th January.
