Indexa Capital begins its journey in the BME Growth. The three co-founders of the Spanish automated fund manager have rung the bell today on the Madrid Stock Exchange with increases of up to 19%, although with a very small volume of transactions due to the fact that the shares in negotiation are limited. The company starts this phase with the intention of making the leap to the Continuous Market in the coming years and with the aim of growing organically and also through acquisitions throughout Europe and consolidating the market.
The company has come out with a valuation of more than 150 million euros. The way to land in the park is through a ‘listing’ in which the ‘free float’ is quite limited. Trading is done twice a day due to the smaller number of shares outstanding. At the first price set this Wednesday after the bell rings, the shares have risen to almost the limit set by the regulations. Thus, each title is listed in this first ’round’ at 12.3 euros -compared to the 10.3 with which it started-.
The co-CEO and co-founder, Unai Ansejo, assured during his speech after the bell that they have three objectives with this step of listing on BME Growth: increase customer and market confidence; offer greater liquidity to shareholders and greater ease for potential new investors, and achieve a window of liquidity and access to financing for possible future operations.
In this context, the director of the group and co-founder Ramón Blanco has pointed out that they intend to grow organically, but also through acquisitions: “We hope that the listing of our shares will place us in a position of consolidators in Continental Europe”. These purchases will not only be limited to the markets in which they are already present – Spain, Belgium and France – but also to others on the continent.
Both executives have stressed, like the other co-founder and co-CEO, François Derbaix, that this premiere in the park is a step further. “It is the beginning of a new stage,” said Derbaix, who has insisted that there is “promising growth” in Belgium and France. Along with the automated manager, Indexa also has the Bewater Funds business, a fund manager for the purchase of secondary startup shares.
The company has revenue forecasts of 4.8 million euros in this year 2023 (a growth of 23% compared to the previous year) and with a net profit of just over half a million euros. This gain on revenue will represent 11%, a proportion that will foreseeably increase progressively over the next few years. They seek to raise the assets under management to overcome the barrier of 2,000 million.
Today, the shareholding of the firm is very distributed, although with a specific weight of the founders and the ‘anchor investor’, which is the Spanish investment fund Cabiedes & Partners. Specifically, Derbaix is the largest shareholder with 20.4% of the titles and the Spanish manager adds 19%. Behind are Unai Ansejo (16.7%), Ramón Blanco (8.4%); the former CEO of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, Pedro Luis Uriarte (6%); the All Iron Ventures fund (5%) and Veriditas Ventures -of Yago Arbeloa, brother of the former Real Madrid player-, and Fides Capital (Iberagentes) with 5% each. There are another 28 partners who have less than 5%. They all have a commitment to limit stock sales.