Each year YCF’s annual conference takes a broad theme that gives a variety of speakers the opportunity to set out their own knowledge or experience in different ways. This year’s conference looks at trade sales from a number of different angles; how companies can prepare for the event, and how their investors can help them do this, how some major corporations find and evaluate acquisitions, and what happens after a young company has been acquired.
Investors in early stage companies normally expect to recover their money, and if possible make a significant profit, within a few years of making the investment. This is usually achieved by means of an ‘exit’, sometimes by way of a stock market flotation, but more often through a trade sale to a larger business. Although the investors may leave at this point, for many companies a trade sale takes the business to a new level – having up to this point focused on technology development and getting to market, the company now has access to sales channels, global markets, supportive administrative and technical back-up, and other benefits.
Investors in early stage companies normally expect to recover their money, and if possible make a significant profit, within a few years of making the investment. This is usually achieved by means of an ‘exit’, sometimes by way of a stock market flotation, but more often through a trade sale to a larger business. Although the investors may leave at this point, for many companies a trade sale takes the business to a new level – having up to this point focused on technology development and getting to market, the company now has access to sales channels, global markets, supportive administrative and technical back-up, and other benefits.
We will hear from a range of industry professionals –investors, analysts, business advisers – interspersed with presentations by succesful local entrepreneurs, always a popular feature of our conferences.