APG launches Capital Markets Forum
Stefano Sciacca, managing director of APG stated: “Every day, we feel our clients struggle to raise capital to fuel their operations and ambitious plans. We believe there is a wide gap in the market to finance companies unattractive to mainstream equity investors and too early-stage to get funded by banks or large credit funds. Even the best-in class venture capital investors need a complementary partner to support their portfolio companies’ funding needs. This is where our first credit fund idea takes place. Our value proposition remains the same: make venture financing frictionless by providing tailo -made financing solutions to match high growth business, while optimizing our clients’ capital structure.”
APG a global investment banking firm serving growth technology companies, and with expertise in advising and arranging equity private placements, alternative credit transactions and executing Mergers and Acquisitions, has gather with close to 50 leaders of global technology companies, investors and capital markets experts in Milan, to launch its first Capital Markets Forum.
The conference took place at Milan’s Stock Exchange and gathered founders and top executives of high-growth technology companies operating in the fintech, mobility, logistics, healthcare, and SaaS industries.
Additionally, during the event, APG disclosed that its investment management division aims to expand its current $150 million private credit portfolio, with borrowers operating in Italy, UK, Netherlands, USA, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and the UAE.
Among the topics discussed during the event, relevant leaders of technology companies
concluded that M&A activity is often overlooked, and inorganic expansion strategies can offer unexpected growth opportunities. A relevant topic with a positive outlook acording to Fitch Ratings, as in its presentation Andrea Bonaventura, Senior Director covering the European Leveraged Finance market expressed that interest rate cuts expectations materialized, the capital markets could foresee higher liquidity to finance such strategies.
Victor Rivera, managing director of APG stated: “By creating the APG Capital Markets Forum, we want to foster a by invitation-only conference, were market leaders share their views and capital markets trends are discussed, but more importantly, a conference in which deals are made and growth strategies get funded. Therefore, we want to thank our clients, partners, and investors for believing in us through the years, and we hope our relationship will get stronger.
Also, founders expressed higher interest for alternative equity raising strategies such as partial listings in public markets. In this regard, APG shared with the public, its ambition to offer operate in local markets such as Chile through its ScaleX initiative to serve the Latin American client base, as well as operating in the London Stock Exchange and Euronext for the EU clients.
Finally, currency risk took a big part of the round table discussions, after the outstanding presentation by Ebury’s Partner Jack Sirett. Not only did he share market expectations about the currencies APG’s clients have exposure to, but more importantly, it consolidated the current partnership with APG by sharing hedging strategies developed for companies and investors.