Spouse(s) Jacqueline Beecroft | Name Adrian Beecroft | |
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Paul Adrian Barlow Beecroft (born Yorkshire 20 May 1947) is a British venture capitalist based in London. He was for many years Chief Investment Officer of the private equity group Apax. He is currently Chairman of Dawn Capital.
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In December 2006 Beecroft was appointed to the NESTA Investment Committee. At that time NESTA was still a QUANGO.
Among Beecroft's known personal investments are Gnodal, a computer networking company, and Wonga.com, a high interest loan company.
Beecroft has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party since 2006.
Beecroft Report and controversy
The release on Monday 21 May 2012, of the long-awaited "Beecroft Report" in the UK caused considerable controversy because it recommended that the government should cut red tape in order to make the hiring and firing of employees easier. The report claimed this would help to boost the economy although no evidence for this was provided. It was alleged that significant sections of the report had been doctored. It was also reported that some recommendations had been removed from the original draft of the report. On 21 May Secretary of State for Business Vince Cable condemned the report, saying it was unnecessary for the government to scare workers. Beecroft responded by accusing Cable of being a socialist who does little to help business and cited his own personal experience of having to pay out £150,000 for unfairly dismissing an HR employee as one of the reasons he included the idea in the report. One newspaper connected the recommendation to Beecroft's career of cutting jobs.
Philanthropy
Beecroft funds the Beecroft Institute of Particle Physics at Oxford University.
Personal life
Beecroft has homes in London and Banbury in Oxfordshire.
Beecroft is a supporter of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway of which he is a director. He is a keen auto-enthusiast, having an extensive collection of vehicles, including several Aston Martins, most notably a DBR1 which he races at a number of motoring events and later crashed in 2015. He is a governor of Hymers College in Hull.