Adam Afriyie (Shadow Minister (Innovation and Science), Business; Windsor, Conservative)

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills pursuant to the Answer of 20 October 2009, Official Report, column 1433W, on public bodies: finance, what the return profit from the portfolio of investments in companies and loans held by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, known as NESTA Investments, was in each year since 1998.

David Lammy (Minister of State (Higher Education and Intellectual Property), Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; Tottenham, Labour)

NESTA's early stage investment activity was launched as a fully commercial operation in March 2007 under the name of NESTA Investments. Prior to this, investment activity was not fully commercial in remit and consisted of a mixture of grants, interest free loans and other instruments.

Since the formation of NESTA Investments, the profits on disposal of investments to third parties held in the NESTA Investment portfolio were £278,000 in 2007-08 and £133,000 in 2008-09.

I have been advised by NESTA that NESTA Investments is expected to realise the value of its portfolio over the next five to seven years. This time frame is the average period that seed funds operating in this field tend to hold their investments, before realisation.