Il ruolo del Venture Capital nelle offerte pubbliche iniziali. Il caso italiano.

Executive Summary L.T. Panza, L.T. Rodia ii 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.1 Background This paper focuses on venture capital and the impact that the presence of venture capitalists has on the initial public offerings of the firm in their portfolios. It is not easy to define what venture capital is. Just think that it assumes two different meanings in the US and European literature. First of all, it is therefore necessary to highlight these differences, making a distinction between the Anglo-American and European connotation of venture capital and private equity. The pure venture capital is, as in the American sense, the provision of financing by risk capital to young (or start-up), high potential growth companies, in order to support the early stage. The venture capital distinguishes among the other financial risk capital instrument because venture capitalists supply the firms not only with financial resources, but also with monitoring and consulting activities. They offer to the firms in their portfolios a wide range of competences and relationships with many kind of professionists. With his skills and activities, the venture capitalist allows the birth and development of new innovative projects and, in case of success, give them the opportunity to go public. IPOs represent, in fact, for the venture capitalists industry the most important kind of exit because they allow venture capitalists to maximize their returns. However going public is important for the firms too, since it represents for them a source of capital and visibility. Unfortunately, young, small, high technological firms cannot easily reach the quotation, because of the existence of strong information asymmetry with the market. For this type of companies the presence of venture capitalists, with their role of certifying agents, is virtually the only way to get the confidence of market’s investors and so making the going public process economically favorable. In fact venture capitalist, with their presence, reassure the market and the other investors involved in the going public process, as regards the value and quality of the company they support. In the 90s boom of Internet and the following flow of information technology IPO’s firms, the rush to innovation to remain competitive and the rising of New Markets brought to the development in Italy of the venture capital industry. Only since the end of 90s it is possible to talk of “Italian venture capital phenomenon”. The proposal of this work is to analyze the tie existing between Venture Capital and Initial Public Offering and, in particular, the impact of these financial operators on Italian IPOs. Venture capitalists’ support in going public The new development of Italian venture capital industry The venture capital