ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS
3 questions to smart minds
Photo: Dr. Weber

New paths for growth in the SME sector

For this 3 questions to Dr. Sonnfried Weber

BayBG/ Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH
Photo: Dr. Weber
17. June 2015

The corpo­rate finance market is still under­go­ing profound change — both inter­na­tio­nally and in Germany. Equity finan­cing and bank loans conti­nue to be the core elements of finan­cing. Mezza­nine finan­cing, inves­tor models and facto­ring in parti­cu­lar have recently gained signi­fi­cantly in importance. What forms of finan­cing will be the focus in the future?


For this 3 ques­ti­ons to Mana­ging Direc­tor (Spokes­man) of BayBG

1. Which paths will be prefer­red for corpo­rate finan­cing in the SME sector in the future?
In future, the issue of “equity” will play an incre­asingly important role in corpo­rate finan­cing. This alre­ady results from the Basel III requi­re­ments. The finan­cing house banks will ther­e­fore press for a higher equity ratio. But entre­pre­neurs will also try on their own initia­tive to build up more equity capi­tal than in the past. The global finan­cial crises of the past have shown entre­pre­neurs that higher equity offers more secu­rity. Private equity and mid-market invest­ment compa­nies can make a major contri­bu­tion here.
2. Will the status (favo­ri­tism) of private equity in the DACH region change against this background?
Finan­cing via equity capi­tal has proven helpful for nume­rous compa­nies. Growth finan­cing or company succes­si­ons are carried out jointly with the prin­ci­pal banks and the invest­ment compa­nies. There is a wide range of finan­cing with equity capi­tal. Private equity compa­nies usually take company shares, i.e. they parti­ci­pate “openly”, and then also by a majo­rity. Medium-sized invest­ment compa­nies, such as Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft BayBG, parti­ci­pate openly, but only as mino­rity share­hol­ders, i.e. below 50%. More often, howe­ver, silent part­ner­ships are gran­ted, which means that the entre­pre­neur remains “master in his own house” and does not have to surren­der any shares. Equity finan­cing in open or silent form is incre­asingly gaining accep­tance in German-spea­king count­ries, because the house banks receive another risk part­ner and the entre­pre­neurs can realize projects that would not be possi­ble without equity capi­tal. It’s a “win-win” situa­tion for ever­yone involved.
3. Will IPOs play a bigger role in this?
IPOs are an important chan­nel for raising equity or enab­ling share­hol­der chan­ges. Howe­ver, a “posi­tive stock market envi­ron­ment” is important. Such posi­tive stock market phases can be obser­ved every year, but unfort­u­na­tely not consis­t­ently. Also, IPOs are usually only feasi­ble and sensi­ble with some­what larger compa­nies; the entry size is 50 — 100 million euros in sales, depen­ding on the stock market segment. These are the ones that gene­rate sustainable profits and can provide inves­tors with suffi­ci­ent corpo­rate data on a rota­tio­nal basis. This, in turn, is costly and ther­e­fore not feasi­ble for every company. For this reason, IPOs will tend to be the excep­tion in the DACH region in the fore­seeable future.

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