Fintech
The Labor Party supports fintech, but must urge pension funds to invest more in Britain
The 20 Fenchurch Street skyscraper, also known as Walkie Talkie, left, and The Shard, right, in the City of London. (Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Labor Party supports Britain’s fintech industry but could turbocharge the sector by pushing pension funds to invest more in Britain, a top City official has said.
“Labour recognizes the huge success the UK fintech industry has had,” Tim Levene, CEO of Augmentum Fintechhe told City AM, noting that the strength of Britain’s tech sector fits perfectly with the party’s focus on growth.
“There is a lot of support for what the industry is doing, what it has done and what it can do to continue to allow it to thrive,” he added.
However, while everything Levene heard from the party about fintech was “really positive”, he argued that even more could be done by looking at “creative ideas” for unlock capital within pension funds.
“What they can do to encourage pension funds to move more quickly, I think could have a really positive impact,” the chief executive said.
“Hypothetically, if I were to become Chancellor, this would be one of the first things I would look to do.”
Jar of coins
Around 4% of shares listed in London are now held by pension funds, down sharply from the 39% held at the turn of the millennium.
There is now growing demand from pension funds to inject more capital into British companies to support their growth.
“It’s not so much about changing regulation, but more about delivering”
If nothing is done to support financial technology, “we must guard against indifference,” he said, as countries such as France increasingly believe they can take market share away from the UK.
“There is huge government support for the French tech sector and this has really transformed the French startup space,” Levene said.
Augmentum is an investment fund focused on financial technology across Europe, but the majority of its investments are in the UK.
In today’s annual results, the fund announced that it has invested in a new FX trading platform, called LoopFX.
UK fintech could be in danger if nothing is done, said Tim Levene, CEO of Augmentum Fintech.
Backed by the likes of Martin Gilbert, company CEO Blair Hawthorne is “one of the most impressive founders” Levene has met, he said.
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“We recognize that the institutional spot FX market presents many challenges, huge inefficiencies, and the need for an institutional dark pool is well understood,” he added.
Despite make the new investment, trust was demanding. While the number of fintech companies
Augmentum considered investing about 60% raise in the last quarter, Levene said the tech sector is simply very expensive right now.
“Since the IPO we have said no 99.4% of the time, in the last 12 months we have said no 99.9% of the time,” he said.
We have said no to many opportunities where we have loved the activities, we just don’t love the price.
While the public tech sector has gone nuts on valuations, with companies like Nvidia soaring in prices, Levene is eager for confidence to “not lose its mind” on valuations, which currently average 4.7 times stock multiples. future revenues for the sector. wallet.
Augmentum’s top 10 fintech holdings represent approximately 80% of the portfolio and average revenue growth of 65% annually.
Five out of 10 are profitable, while the rest have an average of 20 months of liquidity
Levene also wants companies to no longer focus on “growth at all costs” for some of them mature businessesas the CEO aims to realize their value through sale or IPO.
However, the CEO pointed out that 95% of fintech deals come from mergers and acquisitions, while only 5% come from IPOs, making the possibility of one of Augmentum’s holdings making its way onto the London market unlikely.