Boston London New York

Results of Annual Semaphore PE Industry Confidence Survey

 Self-Confident PE v Congressional Follies

By Mark S. DiSalvo

 

The Semaphore Confidence Survey respondents are truly prescient.  If America had only listened to our results last year it would have saved the American people over a Billion dollars in advertisements and political machinations in the just concluded presidential campaign.  Exactly twelve months ago some 47% of our respondents had confidence in Mitt Romney (funny, that number).  Game over.  Then again, only 39% were confident in President Obama.   Let’s see what Nate Silver can do with this year’s results!

While Romney is off the political grid and despite the big re-election, only 33% of respondents expressed confidence in the President with 37% stating a lack of confidence in him. That is decidedly better than his principal newest political foe, Speaker John Boehner, who “enjoys” a 3% favorable v 64% unfavorable rating. Those abysmal ratings are only superseded by Congress as a whole with nearly 80% expressing no or little confidence in our elected officials laboring under the Capitol Dome with not a single expression of confidence by any respondent.

In contrast some 78% of our respondents are confident in themselves and 43% remain confident in the PE/VC Industry with only 18% expressing some lack of confidence in how they earn a living. Personal confidence slipped a bit from last year’s results of 81%. Confidence in the US economy has slipped from last year, 37% to 46% and degraded even more with the International economy as the preponderance of those with little or no confidence grew from 47% last year to 57% today.  This seems a bit counterintuitive in that the number and size of expected deals appear significantly up by those self-reporting their expected investment objectives.  Further proofed by the fact that 65% earned more income last year than in 2011 and fully 57% expect to earn yet again more income than in 2012 - they’re going to need it to pay higher taxes.

Continuing the reversal of a trend prior to last year, my industry colleagues continue to see the prospect of more income, more deal flow and high confidence in themselves, their peers, and industry. This clear read comparing the raw highlight data from the 5th annual Semaphore Confidence Survey with last year’s results affords some fascinating insight across business and politics.

And in what is the group investing?  Enterprise Software replaced Social/Community Technology for the top spot with the latter moving down to third and Financial Services moving from eighth to 2nd this year.  Health Care Services moved from third to 4th with Digital Media rounding out the top five.  For the second year in a row, Sustainable Energy/Cleantech (for the first three years of our survey in the top five) failed to make the top ten.  On-line Consumer Retail and Gaming went from 4th and 5th to 9th and 10th.

The distribution of respondents in the US stayed remarkably the same from past years - the top six were CA, MA, NJ, NY, CT, TX, with only NY and NJ swapping places. Our US respondents had reasonable confidence in their state governments with 28% expressing confidence - that must look like heaven to the US Congress even though it is down from 37% last year.   

International responses were quite different.  We had our widest ever distribution of respondents with only the UK remaining on top with 27% of all international survey-takers with  Canada, China and France rounding-out the top four.  Russia, Japan, Switzerland and Germany were knocked out of last year’s top five. International respondents had crushingly poor opinions of their governments with the same 74% having no or little confidence in their countries leaders, up 3% from the 2011 survey and more than double the 31% of three years ago. 

The over 470 who did reply this year, up slightly from last year, were weighted a bit differently than  prior years’ mix of VC (39%  this year v 28% last year), Buy-out pros (24% v 33%), Limited Partners (13% v 11%) operating executives (6% v 19%) and third party professional 18% v 12%).

Comments this year were generally policy oriented and in a serious vein.  Some can be viewed on the raw data highlight link below.  There was one comment I’ll share in full from either a jokester or savant – or both:

“I met a fairy who said she would grant me one wish.  Immediately I said, "I want to live forever." "Sorry," said the fairy, "I'm not allowed to grant eternal life." "OK," I said, "Then, I want to die after Congress gets its head out of its ass!" The fairy replied, "You crafty bastard."  12/26/2012 2:14 PM

Maybe this individual should run for Congress.

See you next year.

To see the highlights of the results of the 2013 Semaphore Confidence Survey please click here.  If you want to do your own comparison, the 2012 Semaphore Confidence Survey results are here.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Mark S. DiSalvo is the President and CEO of Sema4 Inc., dba Semaphore (www.sema4usa.com), a leading global professional services provider of Private Equity and Venture Capital funds under management and diligence services. Semaphore currently holds fiduciary obligations as General Partner for six Private Equity and Venture Capital funds, is a New Markets Tax Credit lender and advises General and Limited Partners as well as corporations around the world. Semaphore's corporate offices are in Boston with principal offices in New York, London and Dallas.

Topics: entrepreneurs, equity, private equity funds, Semaphore, funds under management, general partners, limited partners, VC, investment, Business Operations

WHAT CAN MASS DO?

Posted by Richard Gabriel on Thursday, July 29, 2010 @ 12:00PM 

By Richard Gabriel

I live in Massachusetts and let’s face it; we live in what is perceived to be a high tax state. Whether this belief is true or not we share that belief of high taxes with California, New York, New Jersey and Michigan. On the other hand Florida, Texas and North Carolina, among others share a different belief and it is reflected in each states approach to funding of Life Science companies. And each of those states would kill for the concentration of Life Science, technology and educational institution that we enjoy with California and the other so called high tax states.

Sure, taxes in Massachusetts and the overall business environment for start up companies are less than ideal. There is frankly, no comparison between the incentives being offered in Florida and Texas for start up companies to move to those states and start their businesses. Some entrepreneurs have moved to these states and have taken advantage of the help, financing and favorable state environments. Each time a technology leaves Massachusetts heading for more fertile pastures, we lose jobs, tax revenues and population, which in turn decreases our real estate values, creates more stress on our commonwealth to raise taxes even more, it’s a vicious cycle and yet we sit on one of the greatest natural intellectual resources in the world and have yet to figure out how to fully mine its fountain of bubbling opportunities.

However, in my last blog, we talked about a new funding model for biotech and the life sciences industry and we received hefty responses from VC’s that were interested in exploring a new way of funding. Some ideas that we kicked around included a new ‘fund’ that would have a longer time horizon, attract a more patient and less capricious group of investment partners that weren’t demanding a 5 year exit with double digit returns per annum, but rather a combination of long term debt, mixed with long term equity investment.

How would such a fund work? Well a possible appropriate debt to equity ratio should be 1 to 4. Every dollar in long term debt at a reasonable interest rate is backed by 4 dollars in equity. This ratio, provides the limited debt partner with the interest only coverage for the life of the debt, which in Life Sciences, should be no less than 10 years. Additionally, expecting a short term double digit return on a Life Science equity investment is, frankly, ridiculous. Not only does it place an unfair burden on the entity that is being formed and its management, it is an unfair hurdle and it’s artificial to the practical operations of starting and running this type of business.

Well then, what about the risk? How is a venture fund ever to make any money? All these choices have their pluses and minuses and are self evident. For the entrepreneur, think, Steven Jobs, Michael Dell, Bill Gates and not a veteran of multiple start up companies, all of whom have, by now, failed, been swallowed or otherwise disappeared and, if alive, are headquartered in another part of the country. Perhaps the alternative though of invest big, hold, pay dividends and interest or buy back the shares at an appreciated rate that reflects the true value of the business that was built has some merit today? Take a look at the valuation gaps between a pre-clinical candidate and the sums of money paid by Pharma for Phase 2 & 3 compounds, the gap is astronomical and it is that gap that tells us or should tell us that the current model is wrong

We should be looking more carefully at the broken institution of funding our start ups in our state and instead of letting Texas, Florida, North Carolina and California pirate our technologies and people away, find a way to fund them and keep them here. Build businesses and jobs and people will start coming back to Massachusetts or perhaps they won’t even leave after they graduate! Got any ideas? Write us. We’d love to hear from you.

        _______________________________________________

Richard Gabriel is head of the Life Science practice at Sema4 Inc., dba Semaphore (www.sema4usa.com), a leading global professional services provider of Private Equity funds-under-management and technology diligence services. Semaphore currently holds fiduciary obligations as General Partner for six Private Equity and Venture Capital funds and advises General and Limited Partners as well as Corporations around the world. Semaphore’s corporate offices are in Boston with principal offices in New York and London.

Topics: Biotech, Venture Capital, entrepreneurs, equity, Semaphore, technology, Life Sciences, investment, venture funds

American Entrepreneurism Takes Gold in Vancouver

Posted by Jon Klein of The Topline Strategy Group on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010 @ 10:45AM 

By Jon Klein

Though only 177 of the total 258 Olympic medals have been awarded so far, with Germany and the United States still battling  for medal supremacy (as of February 23, the US had 26 medals and Germany 23), the real winner of the 2010 games has already been decided : American entrepreneurism.

From 1964 until 2002, the United States' performance in the Winter Games could only be described as dismal. During that period, the US ranked no higher than 3rd and as low as 9th in the medal count and only earned between 5% and 10% of all medals awarded.

US Winter Olympic Performance Lagged from 1964 to 1998, but Has Improved Dramatically Since

However, US fortunes started to change in 2002, when the country ranked 3rd in the medal count and won an impressive 14.5% of the medals awarded. In 2006, the US rose to 2nd in the medal count and as of February 23rd, US performance at the 2010 Games has hit its highest water mark since 1952, ranking 1st in the medal count and winning 14.7% of the medals.

So what happened to transform the US from Winter Olympics straggler to the champion of the games? If you think the reason is that a group of premiere Luge academies and Biathalon camps were established in the US to improve our training, guess again.  The answer is that over the last 20 years, the US has innovated its way to the top of the medal count. Of the 15 Olympic sports contested in Vancouver, one-third of them made their Olympic debut during or after the 1992 games: Snowboarding, Freestyle Skiing, Short Track Speed Skating, Skeleton, and Curling. The three of them that award the most medals (Snowboarding, Freestyle and Short Track) were primarily invented in the US and the US remains the unquestioned leader in these events.

2010 Winter Olympic Sports by the Year They Debuted in the Olympics

Notes: Despite Skeleton's presence in 1928 and 1948, the more relevant year for this analysis is 2002, the date it returned to competition. Mass Start Speed Skating, the forerunner to today's Short Track, was the popular form of the sport in the US and included in the 1932 Lake Placid games.

The impact of these events on US performance cannot be overstated. Of the 2010 medals awarded in these sports, the US has won an astounding 25% of the total. Without them, instead of ranking 1st in the medal standings, the US would be tied for 2nd with Norway, 6 medals behind Germany.

Performance of the Top 3 Medal Winners by Date the Sport Debuted in the Olympics

So what does this all mean? First, it means that we get to mingle great entertainment with national pride. For me, the highlight of the Games has been Shaun White winning the Half Pipe with a performance head and shoulders above everyone else. Second, and more importantly, it is a reminder that the strength of our country comes from our entrepreneurial spirit. These sports were invented in the US and through the hard work and dedication of the sports' innovators, generated a worldwide following that ultimately led to their inclusion in the Olympic games.

                            ___________________________________________

Jon is the founder and general partner of The Topline Strategy Group, a strategy consulting and market research firm specializing in emerging technologies.  Jon brings a unique blend of strategy consulting and hands on operating experience to The Topline Strategy Group and works closely with Semaphore on a variety of engagements.

Topics: entrepreneurs, American entrepreneurism, Olympics

Subscribe by Email

Most Popular Posts