“The economic slowdown is not yet materializing in investment activity, there is a lot of liquidity, a lot of foreign capital, we see a very positive picture despite economic uncertainties,” says Enrique Gutiérrez, managing partner of Financial Advisory at Deloitte.
The founding partner of Portobello Capital, Juan Luis Ramírez at the El Capital Opina event, added:
“Even in the worst years of the crisis, operations have been closed, especially in the mid-market sector, where the size of the Spanish economy and the number of family businesses facilitate investments” “In the second half of last year, we began to see a relaxation in prices, something that did not happen in previous years, where there were very high valuation multiples, now supply and demand are coming together. I wish for a good year for the sector.”
Javier Torremocha, founding partner of Kibo Ventures regarding venture capital, commented that they had noticed zero slowdown, and that there is still a lot of activity and interest in the sector.When they started investing in 2011, around 100 million were invested, but now the figures are around 1,500 and 1.6 billion. Spain is the fastest-growing market in Europe in relative terms, commented Javier Torremocha. In addition, the experts made several proposals and agreed that the most necessary thing is to have stable rules of the game. The partner of Magnum Capital commented:
“The biggest contribution that politicians can make to the industry is security, which is essential especially for foreign investors.
A few years ago, they were asking about political uncertainty in Spain, but today that concern is not there. On the other hand, we must increase domestic investment in funds and obtain greater facilities beyond the ICO with policies that favor it.” 2020 could become one of the highest-grossing years in the sector, with a record of 3.6 billion euros in 2007. The largest contributions to achieve the objective will come from three entities that are trying to build new buyo ut vehicles (or leveraged purchases). The companies are: Magnum, Abac and MCH. On the one hand, MCH and Magnum started fundraising in 2019 and the industry expects it to conclude this year with the objective of materializing the expected funding, around 400 million. On the other hand, Abac is at a more early stage. The goal is to achieve a figure of around 350 million.
