IPO of the Day: Playing Chicken in Stockholm via Scandi Standard

Posted on by admin

BrokerDealer.com/blog news courtesy of Reuters -

Scandinavian food company Scandi Standard said on Monday it would launch an initial public offering in Stockholm that would give it a market capitalisation of up to 2.4 billion Swedish crowns ($361 million).

The company, which makes food products based on chicken and had adjusted EBITDA earnings of 479 million crowns on pro forma sales of 5.2 billion last year, said its shares would be sold at 33 to 40 crowns each.

If the owners decide to increase the offering in full and if the over-allotment option is fully exercised, it will comprise 39.6 million shares, representing 65 per cent of the total number of shares in the company.

Scandi Standard is owned by London-based private equity firm CapVest and Swedish farming association Lantmannen.

Link to full statement: r.reuters.com/hyh22w

($1 = 6.6448 Swedish Crowns) (Reporting by Sven Nordenstam)

 

Investment Banks and BrokerDealers: Getting on Train or Getting Run Over By It

Posted on by admin

Steven M. Davidoff, the Law Professor and Deal Junkie of New York Times, explained in his recent blog at DealBook NYTimes that investment banking business is getting highly effected by not only poor economic conditions, but also increasingly new regulatory changes are constraining the potential of investment banking.

The world of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the rest of the investment banks is being remade, squeezed by new regulations and record low volatility in the markets.

543

So what will the new world look like?

Gary D. Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, described the current market well last month when he noted the “difficult environment” for investment banks. He said that “what drives activity in our business is volatility.” If markets never move, he continued, “our clients don’t need to transact.”

The decline in volatility has sharply reduced already low investment bank trading revenue. Citigroup’s chief financial officer, John C. Gerspach, said at a recent conference that Citigroup’s trading revenue could be down 20 to 25 percent in the next year. Other banks are expecting similar declines.

The continuous amendment of new rules and regulations in the investment banking are now viewed by investors and broker-dealers as roadblocks to their investment goals. In this situation, investment banks are being forced to find new ways to maintain revenue or to shrink. Conventionally, investors and broker-dealers believed that these banks are open to make to choices to reorient their business structure, but in reality their options are confined now.

For instance, Morgan Stanley Group is diverting its focus more in wealth management from traditional investment banking as they get aware of market trends in the investment banking sector. However, they do not leave investment banking sector entirely, but they start capital allocation in other finance sectors to stabilize the overall revenue, if for any uncertain reasons investment banking get saturated.

Other banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, are getting focused in retrenchment activities. While, smaller investment banks like Barclays’ are in free fall, departing top executives. Some have announced to cut their bank’s working capital in half, and some reduced their quarter of human capital.

If you are wondering whether the investment banking comes to an end, well this might not be the case. Except all these rushes in the investment banking sector, Goldman Sachs, has played its strengths and remain focused towards trading and traditional investment banking. Goldman is looking to change as little as possible, betting that the economy will boost again. One good reason is that there are more chances that new entrants will try to avoid investment banking sector and rather invest in other capital investments.

As Gary D. Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, described, “What drives activity in our business is volatility.” If markets never move, he continued, “Our clients really don’t need to transact.”

Upround Ventures Affirms 2 New Events To Be Held In Israel

Posted on by admin

Upround Ventures announces two new events to be held in Israel this year, Mentor Exchange and Innovation Summit. The idea is to bridge the gap of startups graduate accelerator programs or early stage funding of crowdfunding sources or angel investment. The firm connects with qualified Israeli-based technology startups with a large scale financial and strategic capital from Europe, Asia, The United States, and Russia, helping to build associations, create long-term value and grow networks worldwide.

34

“It’s about democratizing the playing field and providing a continuum of process, funding and guidance,” said Esther Loewy, founder and CEO, Upround Ventures. “There is a chasm in the ecosystem today for Series A — the new Series B startups that are outside the Silicon Valley cocoon. Upround Ventures was launched based on feedback from both high-caliber entrepreneurs seeking more choices for capital globally, as well as investors in various parts of the world, who have been asking for smarter ways to reach new premium deal flow.”

Upround Ventures has already begun to recognize and promote the game-changing technologies born in this region, then pair promising entrepreneurs with a network of VCs and other strategic investors who can fuel their sustained growth, and in turn, a thriving innovation economy globally.

Series A/B Mentor Exchange
A first-of-its-kind, Upround Venture’s Series A/B Mentor Exchange presents a network of experienced entrepreneurs and veteran executives to steer innovative early-stage technology companies in getting to the next stage. Bringing expertise across sales and marketing to qualified post-seed-stage companies in the Network.

The Mentor Exchange is the first of various initiatives to be kicked off this year that further reinforce the value proposition for Series-A-ready startups, as well as partners and investors.

Upround Innovation Summit 
On May 19th, Upround Ventures will gather many of the world’s rising startups with global investors and corporate development executives looking for high-value, pre-screened companies.

To be held at IBM’s Innovation Center in Israel, the Upround Innovation Summit will feature…

The full article can be found at crowdfundingpr

Euronext anticipated its IPO value to be more than $2.4 Billion this year

Posted on by admin

BrokerDealer.com/blog update courtesy of extracts from today’s NYT DealBook

Euronext’s initial public offering looks like a tough sell. The firm is seeking a valuation of 1.3 billion euros to 1.8 billion euros when it floats later this month. Anchor investors have a vested interest in backing the issue. But for other buyers, it is a leap of faith.

The IntercontinentalExchange Group is selling down its holding in the unit after inheriting the business through its purchase of NYSE Euronext last year.

2

The NYSE Euronext cash markets operations.

Euronext’s initial public offering looks like a tough sell. The firm is seeking a valuation of 1.3 billion euros to 1.8 billion euros when it floats later this month. Anchor investors have a vested interest in backing the issue. But for other buyers, it is a leap of faith.

The IntercontinentalExchange Group is selling down its holding in the unit after inheriting the business through its purchase of NYSE Euronext last year.

Some of the I.P.O. shares have already been allocated. Cornerstone investors, mainly banks, are to buy a third of the shares at a slight discount to the I.P.O. price, in return for a three-year lockup. As users, their involvement makes sense.

Ten percent of the offering is set aside for retail investors, with another 2 percent set aside for other institutions. That may add some needed tension to the process.

Euronext’s pitch is that it will benefit from European economic recovery, a global shift from bonds to stocks, and increased capital markets activity as European banks scale back lending. It also wants to diversify away from plain-vanilla equity trading into derivatives. As a result, the group expects to achieve average annual revenue growth of 5 percent, and margins on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 45 percent.

Those targets may be more conservative than some peers. But they look a stretch given recent performance.

Revenue fell 11 percent in 2012 and 3 percent in 2013. The London Stock Exchange increased revenue in both years. First-quarter revenue in the current year also fell from a year earlier. Annual Ebitda margins were last above 45 percent in 2011. The forthcoming Financial Transactions Tax, and a possibly secular reduction in trading activity, could restrict any upturn in volumes.

The full article can be found at NYT DealBook.

Broker Dealers Battle To Manage Tech Guru Billions: BrokerDealer.com Blog

Posted on by admin

Aka “It can be good to be a Wall Street broker-dealer…”

Brokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of WSJ and reporter Randall Smith

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times.Thorne Perkin, a wealth adviser, said the young tech group was not to be ignored.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times.Thorne Perkin, a wealth adviser, said the young tech group was not to be ignored.

When Microsoft went public in 1986, its chief executive and largest shareholder, Bill Gates, wound up with a broker at Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm that had led the company’s initial public offering.

The San Francisco broker, William Hobi, was so excited to have Mr. Gates as a client that he put a vanity license plate on his Porsche for a few years with the letters MSFT, the trading symbol for the company’s stock.

Times may have changed, but technology billionaires still set the engines racing among Silicon Valley brokers. Social media I.P.O.s, including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and acquisitions like Facebook’s planned $18 billion purchase of WhatsApp have created more than a dozen billionaires, by one count of Forbes magazine data.

Competition to handle their money is intense. “Every day I get a connection request from a wealth manager on LinkedIn,” said Michael Cagney, the founder and chief executive of Social Finance, or SoFi, an online student-loan platform in San Francisco that might go public in the next year or two. Mr. Cagney sold another financial software company, Finaplex, in 2007 and runs a hedge fund.

 For the full story from the WSJ, please click here.