Deutsche Börse and KfW Bankengruppe jointly opened the German Equity Forum in Frankfurt am Main for the 16th time on Monday. The capital market conference is the largest international information and networking platform for companies, investors and analysts in the financial industry.
Opening the forum, Deutsche Börse CEO Dr. Reto Francioni emphasised the importance of equity financing: “Companies' need for equity is still high. Equity supply remains a core function of stock exchanges. High-growth companies are dependent on reliable and cost-effective financing if they want to realise their potential. This forum is designed to help in this respect.”
“Providing equity to entrepreneurs and SMEs at various stages of their development is one of the core tasks of KfW. Together with private lenders, our product offering supports innovative and growth-oriented companies in particular. It goes without saying that we should continue to maintain this private equity provision even in economically difficult times,” said Dr Ulrich Schröder, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors at the KfW Bankengruppe.
The focus of the around 40 presentations and workshops that await some 5,000 visitors from 21 – 23 November will be forums on current capital market and IPO trends, bonds on the stock exchange, and a Turkey Forum, hosted by the Istanbul Stock Exchange. There will also be a focus on the life science, clean energies, green technology and agricultural sectors. Over 2,500 discussions are planned between companies and investors.
In addition, around 200 listed companies, primarily from the Prime Standard, will be presenting their Q3 results at investor and analyst conferences. More than 50 non-listed companies will use the forum to present their business models to a broad group of venture capital and private equity investors.
Deutsche Börse, together with the Deutsche Aktieninstitut and Commerzbank, will also use the occasion to present the results of a new study on SME financing. This examines the potential of German SMEs eligible to join the stock exchange, and analyses the attitudes of German SMEs towards IPOs and other capital market instruments such as corporate bonds. The study showed that SMEs are generally well prepared for an IPO. Around 1,250 German SMEs are economically and financially capable of an IPO according to key indicators such as revenue, growth and return on investment.
The complete study “Capital market focus and financing of SMEs” (German only) is available at www.deutsche-boerse.com. Detailed information on the programme for the German Equity Forum is provided at www.eigenkapitalforum.com.
