Industrial Common Ownership Finance (ICOF)

Material relating to Industrial Common Ownership Finance Ltd.

The Industrial Common Ownership Finance (ICOF) was set up in 1973, with £5000 from Scott Bader and £5000 from individual and smaller donations. ICOF was set up to allow a revolving loan fund for workers' co-operatives. This was needed due to workers' co-operatives commonly having trouble raising capital due to their democratic model not allowing for investment by outside shareholders. in 1976 ICOF received £250 000 for a revolving fund through the Industrial Common Ownership Act. After lauching the ICO Fund plc in 1987, and ICOF Community Capital in 1994, ICOF later became Co-operative & Community Finance, the current trading name of the ICOF family of business.

Co-operative & Community Finance: A mature lender with an eye to the future

Co-operative & Community Finance

The material was ordered in labelled folders on acquisition , these form the series within the catalogue.

The collection is open to any accredited reader, subject to the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Some files in this collection are subject to Data Protection legislation as they contain sensitive information and material under 30 years old is closed to access. It is advised that you contact the Archivist before visiting.

This collection had previously been housed as part of the Co-operative Heritage Trust library collection along with various publications relating to workers' co-operatives. The collection was identified and accessioned into the National Co-operative Archive as part of the Working Together project.

In October 2017, the National Co-operative Archive published a call-out for historic materials within the wider workers' co-operative community for Working Together, a Heritage Lottery Funded project seeking to record and preserve the heritage of the worker co-operative moment.

Material relating to ICOF can also be found in the Roger Sawtell Papers held at the National Co-operative Archive, reference RSP/3.