The Agenda
March 31, 2023
Breakfast
Opening Remarks
Presentation
A Technical Breakdown of Venture Debt Underwriting Models
- Underwriting models – Sponsor-driven vs. company fundamentals-driven vs. structured deals
- Similarities and differences / Pros and cons
- The benefits of properly structured venture debt to companies, management teams, investors, and lenders
- Use cases of different venture debt models for win/win/win results
Chief Operating Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Horizon Technology Finance
Speaker
Presentation
The State of the Venture Debt Market
- Current trends including what recent bank failures mean for the venture debt market
- Discussion of sector-by-sector loan performance
- Understanding the headwinds in the industry for both lenders and borrowers
- Sizing up current market sentiment, especially among equity investors
- How are things different today than they were only one year ago?
Panel
Exploring Revenue-Based Funding From a Company’s Perspective
- Overview of how Revenue-Based Funding works
- How RBF compares to other venture debt approaches for funding your company
- What to look for in a Revenue-Based Funding partner?
- Insights from company founders who have used RBF to scale their businesses
Networking Break
Fireside
Exploring the Latest Trends and Opportunities in Venture Debt Financing
- Are we now in a lender friendly market?
- Are FinTech’s a threat?
- Post SVB landscape?
- Early stage vs late stage?
- Are big platforms like Black Stone, KKR, etc. serious about participating?
- Impact on fund raising?
- Is ESG is a factor?
Fireside
Highlighting the Differences Between Venture Debt Use in Banks vs. Funds
- Banks may have lower cost of capital
- Funds may not be as constrained by banks in the amount they can invest
- Who is typically more supportive – banks or funds?
- Understanding financial covenants
- Due diligence: just as important for investors as companies
Panel
Fundraising For Venture Debt Funds
- Explaining the value of your strategy to prospective investors
- Working with pension fund managers
- Promoting private credit venture debt funds as an attractive but separate asset class
- Focusing the fund on a specific market sector to attract savvy investors
- Partnering with VC firms: pros and cons
- Biggest concerns that equity investors and companies have when raising venture debt
Lunch
Panel
How the Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank will Impact Venture Debt Moving Forward
- Strategies SVB used to dominate the VC ecosystem for venture loans
- Sizing up the competitive landscape of non-bank lenders aiming to fill the void
- How venture debt investments will change in the wake of SVB’s failure
- Discussion of the logical buyers of SVB’s venture loan portfolio
- Analysis of why the current banking crisis will likely drive down private valuations
Founder, Managing General Partner & Chief Investment Officer
Applied Real Intelligence
Panelist
Fireside
Venture Debt From the Borrower’s Perspective: Winning a Deal
- Discuss borrower considerations for selecting a venture debt partner
- Important elements in deal negotiation and execution
Fireside
Alternative Financing for Venture Debt
- Overview: Slowdown in VC capital opens path to alternative financing
- Best practices and capital strategies for financing venture debt businesses
- Operating and institutional capital perspectives on obstacles & opportunities
- Why lending decisions should be data-driven to increase speed to funding
- Managing rising risk in a rising rate environment
Networking Break
Presentation
How to Avoid Big Venture Debt Financing Mistakes
- Planning for a successful close in advance of a venture debt deal
- What’s different about venture debt diligence vs. venture capital diligence
- When and how to set up your data room
Presentation
Lender Landscape: The Current State of Small Business Lending by FinTechs
- Why FinTechs are typically faster to fund
- How your company builds credit when other scoring models are taken into account
- Streamlined operating structure removes many pain points for SMBs
- Blockchain systems and other tech enhancing security
- How FinTechs offer greater flexibility and customization to the small business customer
Presentation
Understanding the Targeted Marketing of Business Credit Cards to VC-Backed Startups
- How to define the addressable market for targeting business credit cards to startups
- What’s the best channel strategy to reach the target
- What are the key differentiators in the value proposition to attract this unique segment
- How to develop brand advocates to support social media marketing
- How to make credit decisions when your target market customers are pre-revenue
Closing Remarks
Cocktail Reception (Sponsored by Barnes & Thornburg)
Conference Topics
It’s been our philosophy since we started hosting conferences in 2003: “The program always comes first.” When we develop an event program, you can bet that it’s on the cutting-edge. Here are just a few of the unique presentations and panel discussions we’re developing for The Activist Investor Conference 2024. If you would like to suggest a speaker for this event, send an email to stacey@dealflowevents.com
Value Investing: Another Way of Saying Activist Investing
- Proposing operational cost reductions, strategies to increase revenue
- Pushing for the sale of underperforming divisions or split a company into separate business units
- Advocating capital allocation and structure, including share repurchases and changes to a company’s capital structure.
- Demanding changes to the size and composition of a company’s board of directors
Trending Legal Issues Facing Shareholder Activism
- Proxy solicitations and exemptions
- Universal proxy and SEC rules
- Do universal proxies increase or decrease board accountability?
- Advance notice bylaws
- Excise tax has chilling effect on promoting share buybacks
- How private placements can undercut an activist strategy
How the Lone Dissident can Prevail
- Challenges a lone dissident board member will face
- Strategies for overcoming resistance and making your case
- Transparency and communicating your intentions to add value
Impact of corporate relations with shareholders on an activist campaign
- Good relations with large shareholders build powerful allies
- Communication strategies for keeping shareholders content
- Corporate transparency: activists cannot attack what is easily disproven
Identifying Targets, Planning Strategy for an Activist Campaign
- Importance of accumulating a significant stake quickly
- Industries that are more (or less) attractive as targets
- Vulnerabilities activists look for
- Importance of the company’s shareholder profile
- Timelines to consider when selecting a target
- What’s the best approach? Control slates vs. short slates? Settlement vs. proxy contest?
- Gauging the likelihood of negotiating a settlement
The Opposing View: How Corporations Resist the Activist Investor
- Consistent financial performance is ultimately the best defense
- A corporate board in solidarity cannot be divided
- Working with outside advisors to combat activist demands
- Don’t overpromise and under-deliver when announcing growth plans
- Defensive weapons – staggered boards & poison pills
- High altitude vision: Keeping what’s best for all shareholders top of mind
- Run the company for shareholders who are going to stay, not hit-and-run investors
Shifting Activist Campaign Focuses
- Pursuing change at ESG companies
- “Woke” vs. “Anti-woke” agendas
- Large-cap companies no longer off-limits
- Targets more likely to implement counter-measures
International Investor Activism: Considering Opportunities Abroad
- Why activist hedge funds look for international targets
- Hurdles activists face when targeting a company oversees
- Meeting the challenge of attracting larger European institutional investor support
Activist Hedge Funds: Creating Value for Themselves and Fellow Shareholders
- Why institutional investors will often follow the activist investor’s strategy
- Short-term stock gains vs. long-term value creation
- Promoting stock buybacks, encouraging debt to return cash to shareholders
- Pushing for divestiture of non-core business lines
A Look at Operational, Boardroom, Governance and Takeover Activism
- Planning the best strategy for the activist campaign
- Operational activism and how it works
- The new paradigm of shareholder-board engagement
- Importance of developing a strong public relations program for the activist campaign
