Small cap investment expert advices from Andrew Ung Los Angeles right now: Understanding Private Equity: In contrast with venture capital, most private equity firms and funds invest in mature companies rather than startups. They manage their portfolio companies to increase their worth or to extract value before exiting the investment years later. The private equity industry has grown rapidly amid increased allocations to alternative investments and following private equity funds’ relatively strong returns since 2000. In 2021, private equity buyouts totaled a record $1.1 trillion, doubling from 2020. Private equity investing tends to grow more lucrative and popular during periods when stock markets are riding high and interest rates are low, and less so when those cyclical factors turn less favorable. Read even more information on Andrew Ung Los Angeles.
How Private Equity Creates Value: By the time a private equity firm acquires a company, it will already have a plan in place to increase the investment’s worth. That could include dramatic cost cuts or a restructuring, steps the company’s incumbent management may have been reluctant to take. Private equity owners with a limited time to add value before exiting an investment have more of an incentive to make major changes. The private equity firm may also have special expertise the company’s prior management lacked. It may help the company develop an e-commerce strategy, adopt new technology, or enter additional markets. A private-equity firm acquiring a company may bring in its own management team to pursue such initiatives or retain prior managers to execute an agreed-upon plan.
Mezzanine: Mezzanine is a unique strategy within PE—it bridges the gap between debt and equity. When a company receives mezzanine financing from a private equity group, it takes on debt (capital with the agreement to pay it back, plus interest) that includes some “embedded equity.” Essentially, that means that the debt can be converted into equity. Sometimes warrants are attached, which allow the lender to purchase equity at a set price at a later date while keeping the original debt. Sometimes mezzanine debt is taken on by itself, and other times, it is in conjunction with another transaction—mostly LBOs.
small cap investment expert advices with Andrew Ung right now: Before you launch your business make sure you have some money: make savings, borrow from family and friends or approach potential investors. Make a financial back-up plan. Learn how to make a budget for your business. Do not expect that once you start your business to receive financing from a bank, because generally they are reluctant to finance start-ups. Consider using a financing program for new businesses such as the START Program. You, as an entrepreneur, are the best marketing agent for your business, so everything you do and communicate must inspire professionalism. This means that everything from clothing and attitude to business cards and behavior must be impeccable and give potential customers and collaborators confidence.
But what does the future of entrepreneurship look like? Entrepreneurship is not just about startups anymore. It’s about innovation, technology, and emerging markets. The world has changed a lot in recent years and so have the opportunities for entrepreneurs to succeed in it.
So what does it mean to bring on an individual or family investor in lieu of going the traditional VC route? These individuals often wish to stay in the venture investment game, but desire more transparency to underlying investments than the traditional venture investing experience provides. They also want the ability to cherry-pick the best deals. In addition, they want to avoid paying the typical “2 and 20” — a deal structure that requires investors to pay a 2 percent annual fee (some as high as 3 percent) to the VC firm on top of the 20 percent return on investment. This is why we’re seeing more of the mega-wealthy groups in the region move away from only investing in private equity funds to increasingly working with their family offices to find the right types of direct investments that fit their long-term wealth-generation strategies.
What’s the difference between private equity and venture capital? Private equity refers to investments or ownership in private companies. It’s also used as a term for the PE strategy of investing. Venture capital investments are a form of PE investment that tend to focus more on early-stage startups. So, VC is a form of private equity. Here are some additional distinctions between PE and VC. Unique characteristics of private equity: PE firms often invest in mature businesses in traditional industries. Using capital committed from LPs, PE investors invest in promising companies—typically taking a majority stake (>50%). When a PE firm sells one of its portfolio companies to another company or investor, returns are distributed to the PE investors and to the LPs. Investors typically receive 20% of the returns, while LPs get 80%.