Fundraising activities in small-cap companies underperformed large-cap companies in 2020 - May 2021 in Asia as they strive to survive through COVID-19. Given the non-purpose feature of our financing solution, this piece looks at how substantial shareholders of small-cap companies could make use of EquitiesFirst’s competitive financing to unlock capital for their companies.

Private banks and traditional lenders are under increasing pressure from macroeconomic and regulatory forces. With an established risk-management system, EquitiesFirst’s single-stock financing solution complements traditional private banks and their client offerings. This piece decodes how private banks benefit from collaborating with EquitiesFirst to solve client needs.

Thailand is a key market for EquitiesFirst where the lack of support from the traditional banking sector and the higher cost of raising capital from the bond market have led to share pledge financing being a more attractive channel to access capital via private credit.

EquitiesFirst’s capacities go beyond their specialization in single name share financing to include Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). This analysis demonstrates how EquitiesFirst’s financing model has several advantages and uses cases that suit the unique characteristics of these asset types.

There is a broad demand for capital onshore in Malaysia, as a significant segment of the economy was underserved by traditional bank financing even prior to the Covid epidemic. An analysis by EquitiesFirst identified the Malaysian market as a significant regional outlier for loans employing listed equity shares as collateral.

A general perception exists that share pledge financing transactions will have a negative impact on the price of the share collateral. EquitiesFirst has conducted an analysis of share pledge transactions to provide context and insights to dispel this perception for equity investors.