finnCap Group How FT insights help advisors at finnCap offer trusted advice to clients from a macro perspective

finnCap Group is a financial services advisory firm that helps growth companies access capital across private and public markets. Established in 2007, finnCap is a publicly listed company that is largely owned by its employees. In 2018, finnCap Group acquired Cavendish Corporate Finance LLP to include middle-market public M&A in their range of financial services alongside investment banking, equities, debt advisory, private growth, alternative capital and significant sector expertise.

John Farrugia, CEO of finnCap Group expects everyone at the firm to be reading the FT. There is an expectation to “come into weekly meetings with an update on anything that they've read that could impact clients or investors as well as potential opportunities.” We spoke with four members of the leadership team at finnCap to understand the benefit they derive from an FT Professional Subscription.

In a rapidly changing technology landscape, keeping abreast of the latest developments and varied opinions is crucial. Anthony Platt, partner and co-head of technology at finnCap Cavendish, has been working in M&A for two decades, and believes that reading the FT consistently is essential in establishing credibility as someone who understands the M&A markets. According to Anthony, everything is built on reputation and credibility, making it vital for him to stay up to date with high-quality business and economic journalism from the FT.

Anthony emphasises the importance of reading the FT on a daily basis and making it a part of professional practice, as this offers a real advantage in understanding complex business and financial situations. He explains that while reading the FT on and off for a year can provide some insight, following all the major business and economic stories over many years provides a much deeper understanding as to what moves the market and how certain businesses are evolving. This knowledge is essential in guiding clients through uncertain times by providing them with a stable source of advice and a big picture perspective on events unfolding in the financial markets.

He stresses the need for his team to be curious about financial markets and the technology sector. Anthony explains how "consistently reading the FT provides a strong foundation for understanding the market drivers and advising clients". Reading about changes in technology and the wider market over a long period also helps advisors at finnCap to prepare clients for their M&A process. After engaging with FT content for several years, "you become familiar with market cycles, debt bubbles, tech highs and lows so can be more sanguine about market conditions". This perspective allows financial advisors to provide clients with a high level of comfort as to how market changes will impact their business in the long run.

Anthony also highlights the usefulness of reading comments on FT.com as they provide alternative perspectives on news stories and events. The different viewpoints help broaden his understanding and enable a more nuanced analysis of the business and economic landscape.

Henrik Persson, who is head of strategic PLC advisory at the firm, supports this ideology; he feels reading the FT helps you to think for yourself and make better judgments. “It’s not about quoting the FT in meetings” says Henrik, but about developing a “curious mind and engaging in conversations in the investment banking community". This is pivotal in building strong client relationships as oftentimes, “the only thing you have in common with your clients is mutual involvement in the financial markets.”

Constantly staying up-to-date on all that is happening in the world can be a difficult task, so the FT can help professionals “develop an interest, understand the themes and begin to learn the language,” says Henrik. “Knowing how to think, having opinions and being able to engage with other people's opinions is, I think, very important.”

The FT is a valuable business tool that helps break down complex news into an easy-to-read format. There is also greater convenience for readers who can utilise a plethora of tools and features to engage with content on FT.com daily. Henrik mostly reads the FT on his commute to work, using the FT app on his phone.

Alice Lane is a director in equity capital markets at finnCap. Her role predominantly involves advising companies on their capital market strategy with a greater focus on the technology and life sciences sector. For Alice, reading the FT is essential in avoiding any confirmation bias, “I always find that if you're kind of looking at a specific area it almost limits your view.” So even though she is very much sector-focused, Alice makes an effort to know “what’s going on in the wider market rather than just looking at finnCap and our clients in a specific space.”

There was an article Alice recalls reading that linked ESPN, Disney and sports betting which she found rather interesting because one of her clients was looking into the sports betting space. “I would never have a clue about what's going on with those names,” she says. So that’s just “an example of something I would never pick up myself,” that the FT helped bring to her attention. “It’s more about having the opportunity to absorb and read as much information as I possibly can.” With access to the FT, Alice is also able to “use the sharing tools to send any relevant articles to clients in case they haven't already seen it.”

A strength of the FT is that it is “unbiased and factual,” says Alice. Objective journalism allows readers to “draw their conclusions” which she believes is “quite helpful for areas that you don't particularly know well.” As Alice focuses on smaller growth companies, the practice of obtaining a broader overview is important as just “because some smaller companies are doing badly, it doesn't necessarily mean the whole sector is doing badly.”

She further explains how finnCap looks after a lot of listed companies, so “if there's a piece of news out there that's impacting one of our client's share prices, it happens very, very quickly.” Not only does Alice need to keep herself informed but also the “clients, traders and market makers as to what’s going on”. Without access to real-time market information with FT Professional, there’s a greater risk of missing out on something important.

John also has a vested interest in the FT’s tech coverage especially as he has a background in technology and tech-enabled business services. At a time of information overload, he finds reading the FT helps him “keep abreast of what’s going on around the world.” John uses multiple data sources but also finds that since “there's too much data out there, sometimes it's hard to get hold of the information that you want.” The FT is one of the data sources where John gets “most of what he needs” and thinks “should be enough.” He emphasises the importance of gaining information from a “credible source” as it can be “hard to distinguish between real data, real news and fake news.” The FT is one of the sources that John and his peers tend to lean towards “to make sure that the data they’re getting is truthful.”

John mentions how one time he saw a comment on a group chat about an FT article that “didn't relate directly to a company but was related to a potential peer/competitor that had a direct relationship with one of our clients.” Consequently, finnCap got in touch with the client “to make them aware of what we were seeing that could have an impact on their business, and potentially their share price that day.”

Henrik tells the FT how take-private transactions were a major theme between the years 2020 and 2022. Public-to-private transactions are something “most private equity buyers were quite unfamiliar with,” says Henrik. “They know about this conceptually but not in its entirety,” he adds. The FT is known for its authority, integrity and accuracy so when the “FT picks up that this is something everyone seems to be doing, private equity buyers begin to realise that this is what they ought to be doing more of,” he explains.

He tells us about a time he had lunch with a private equity manager after his first takeover transaction and how “he wasn’t really interested in it until one of his colleagues read about it in the FT and it changed his perception.” Henrik highlights how the FT didn’t necessarily convince the private equity manager to spend millions on public-to-private transactions, but rather that FT coverage “normalised the concept that was so alien through its legitimacy and reputation for credible journalism.” As a result, individuals within the private equity space started “trusting the concept” of take-private transactions.

The FT’s coverage of the Wirecard story was relevant for many companies that were impacted by the company's downfall. John states how FT’s “exposé on Wirecard a couple of years ago stopped us from taking on a client”. He explains how finnCap “decided not to take them on as a client because we thought it was quite risky and sounded eerily similar to what Wirecard was doing.”

Alice has an understanding of the market but as she isn’t an economist, finds it “very helpful to pull out information FT journalists write about” to pass on to her clients. It’s important for her to stay on top of everything that is happening in the markets as she helps smaller growth companies build a 5-10 year plan to grow ten times their size. Alice says that a company can turn around and say they’re only concerned about something specifically related to their business.” However, in a client advisory role she can say, “Well, actually, the market doesn't care about that, it cares about these three factors,” which is the reason why she values the FT because it allows her to provide greater context to her clients.

She revealed that recently the most “market sensitive, relevant piece from the FT was when our government started the quantitative easing plan on the back of Liz Truss’s budget.” It was during this time that having “very relevant, real-time information on what was going on and views on how that could impact the bond market” was of great significance. She adds how the “equity market was what investors wanted to understand quite quickly” which was beyond her expertise, so FT articles really helped her stay on top of it all during a critical time.

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