Despite the attention generated by mega-deals such as Lyft, Uber and WeWork, the stark reality is that the IPO market is in long term decline with both the number of IPOs and the capital raised roughly halving over the last 20 years both in the US and Europe. A key contributor to this decline is the IPO process itself. Complex, inefficient, plagued by opacity and riddled with conflicts of interest it acts as a deterrent to companies raising capital on regulated markets. Through innovation and automation we can re-focus the process so that it meets the needs of the end users of the market – issuers and investors.
SquareBook is the FCA regulated firm offering a transparent, fair and automated way to IPO in modern markets. By directly connecting issuers and investors SquareBook facilitates a rich information flow, allowing issuers to give preferential pricing and allocations to those investors who best contribute to the book building process. Issuers can also seek out those investors with whom their long-term interests are better aligned. The SquareBook platform removes the conflicts of interest inherent in book building, pricing and the final allocation of shares. SquareBook also removes the artificial barriers that deny many institutional and retail investors access to IPO’s.
Equity is a unique source of permanent risk capital for companies on regulated markets, and an ineffective IPO process has wide reaching negative effects. The OECD estimates that up to 19 million more jobs could have been created in the US if IPO’s had kept pace with the growth in the economy. In Europe, where equity markets are only half the size of those in the US relative to GDP, the potential for growth is enormous. It is rare to hear about anyone actually trying to grow the equity markets, but that is precisely our intention. Our success can only be of benefit to the fund management industry.
Please get in touch via https://squarebook.co.uk/
© 2020 The IA Engine Ltd. All rights reserved. Registered in England and Wales No 11258384. Registered office: Camomile Court, 23 Camomile Street, London EC3A 7LL
