Investment

EquityNet can be a game changing private equity investing tool – Financial Post

Published

5 months ago

February 7, 2022

Megan Johnson

EquityNet uses patented fintech to help investors and entrepreneurs come together

Publishing date:

Feb 07, 2022 • 4 hours ago • 3 minute read

Photo by bruce mars /Unsplash

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

You’re an accredited investor looking to take your portfolio to another level. You want to diversify and start earning higher returns. So you start thinking about private equity investing, the logical next step. But when it comes to private equity investing, what’s the best option for you? If you don’t particularly care where your money goes so long as you see good returns, you might consider a private equity firm that pools money from multiple investors into a private equity fund. However, if you prefer to have more say in how your money gets spent, or you have a lot of experience and expertise in a specific industry, angel investing is probably a better option. But how do you find the right investment opportunities? The answer is EquityNet .

Now flip the script. You own a business or a startup that’s looking to grow. You need money to take things to the next level. But you’re too new or too small to pique the interest of big banks and private equity firms. You need to find an angel investor who is willing to put up their own capital during the early stages in exchange for a stake in your company’s future. You need someone who has experience in your industry and might even provide some valuable mentorship so you can avoid missteps along the way. How do you find that angel investor? The answer, again, is EquityNet.

Founded in 2005, EquityNet is a crowdfunding platform that uses high-tech tools to connect private equity investors and promising new businesses and startups. Right now EquityNet has over 10,000 companies and 25,000 investors, and to date, they have helped businesses raise over $600 million.

Patented Fintech For Businesses And Investors

There are a lot of different crowdfunding investment platforms out there. But EquityNet is the only one that uses patented fintech to help investors and entrepreneurs make smart decisions. And they don’t have just one fintech patent. They have five .

Perhaps the most valuable tool EquityNet offers both investors and entrepreneurs is their patented Enterprise Analyzer TM , which analyzes business plans and provides scores on valuation, risk, investment return, undercapitalization, and many other factors. Investors use the Enterprise Analyzer TM to screen businesses and easily identify prospective investments. Entrepreneurs use it to fine-tune their business plans before they present themselves to investors.

EquityNet also maintains one of the world’s biggest databases of private businesses. This allows the Enterprise Analyzer TM to compare business plans and projections with those of other companies to calculate valuation, risk, and investment return scores in a given industry. It then flags any abnormalities as either moderate or high.

For entrepreneurs, EquityNet’s high-tech tools enable them to create effective profiles, optimize their business plans and seek out the right types of investors. For investors, they help establish investing criteria, analyze thousands of investment opportunities, and do a deep dive on specific investment opportunities.

A Commission Free Marketplace

EquityNet is not a registered broker-dealer or a crowdfunding portal. What does that mean? It means EquityNet merely provides analysis and networking tools. They make no recommendations to either investors or entrepreneurs, and they take no part in the negotiation or execution transactions. And for that reason, EquityNet members never pay a commission on the purchase or sale of securities.

For investors, EquityNet is always completely free. For entrepreneurs with any type of business at any stage of development, getting started with EquityNet is free but certain premium features require a paid subscription. However, companies that use EquityNet’s business planning software are 10 times more likely to find an angel investor than companies that don’t, so a paid subscription is probably worth it.

Whether you are an accredited investor looking for the right business to invest in, or a startup looking for investors who understand your true potential , EquityNet makes private equity investing radically efficient. Click here and see what they can do for you.

Adblock test (Why?)

Source link

Investment

Does your investment advisor understand your social values? – The Globe and Mail

Published

7 hours ago

July 5, 2022

Megan Johnson

Investors and advisors are having more direct conversations about ESG and responsible investing.Rawpixel Ltd.

Everyone has personal and family goals, and investors have priorities too. Canadians are increasingly aligning their investment decisions with preferred societal objectives, such as combating climate change, advancing human rights, alleviating poverty, protecting workers, or achieving sustainable operations.

These issues fall under the banner of ESG – environmental, social and governance. The rise in responsible investing (RI) is driving discussions between clients and their advisors around values and whether portfolio strategies are in sync with those expectations.

“Financial professionals should have a structured discovery conversation with every client, which includes questions on ESG investing,” says Krystian Urbanski, senior vice-president and associate portfolio manager with Forstrong Global Asset Management Inc., in Toronto.

That’s spelled out in guidance for Canadian financial advisors who are registered with the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). Their latest know-your-client guidance, which took effect Dec. 31, 2021, says investors should have the opportunity to express their needs and objectives “in terms that are meaningful to them,” which includes “investing in accordance with environmental, social and governance criteria or other personal preferences.”

The Responsible Investment Association (RIA) had been advocating for that for years, and it notes there has been a disconnect between investors and advisors around this topic.

An RIA survey found that 77 per cent of Canadian retail investors want their financial services provider to inform them about responsible investments that are aligned with their values, yet only 27 per cent had ever been asked about it. In a separate survey of Canadian financial advisors, only 37 per cent said they routinely initiated conversations about ESG and RI with their clients, although 85 per cent said they’re comfortable doing so. “The new guidelines will hopefully help kickstart these conversations,” said the RIA.

Those conversations can take many forms. Some Canadians are already quite knowledgeable about RI, some are simply curious, and others have never heard of the investment approach but might be interested if they knew more.

Mr. Urbanski says questions about financial goals will reveal what people are hoping to achieve in broad strokes. Open-ended questions about what matters to them should naturally lead to a discussion about their societal and personal values, he adds.

Brianne Gardner, a wealth manager and investment advisor with Velocity Investment Partners at Raymond James Ltd., in Vancouver, says advisors should start the conversation with one simple question: “What are your thoughts on investing more sustainably?”

The answer will either reveal an opportunity for education or, she says, “it will give you both a chance to dive deeper into the subject” and establish specific RI goals.

Finding the right investing approach

To set those investment objectives, advisors must probe which ESG criteria are most important to clients, Mr. Urbanski says. Some may want to use an exclusionary approach to investing, which would steer clear of certain holdings such as fossil fuels. Others might prefer an inclusionary approach, which would only make investments in areas such as renewable energy.

Prem MaIik, a financial advisor with Queensbury Securities Inc., in Toronto, says clients who are more experienced in RI might ask more targeted questions about how ESG performance is measured, or how to know if a company is transparent about its ESG practices.

Making sure clients are on the same page with each other is critical too. Mr. MaIik mentions a recent meeting with a couple where one spouse was adamant that their investments exclude oil, gas and tobacco, and the other had no concerns about factoring in ESG. It’s an opportunity to determine how to align family values.

One of the more important questions to discuss is whether investing with ESG practices will affect a portfolio’s performance. Does taking an RI approach mean accepting lower returns and growth? In the current environment of higher oil prices, a portfolio that excludes oil companies might be giving up potential profits. However, one report that examined the findings of 36 empirical studies on RI concluded socially responsible investing overall does not hurt returns.

People also want to know how they can participate in ESG investing. Once an investor’s goals and values are clear, advisors can review an individual company’s policies in detail, or they can recommend ETFs or mutual funds that offer access to a broad range of ESG-compliant companies.

“Although you don’t have an opportunity to choose each company, buying shares of an ESG ETF, for instance, can help clients invest according to their values more efficiently,” Mr. Urbanski says.

Adblock test (Why?)

Source link