Weekly round-up: relationship banking

In the second part of the investigation into the changing nature of acquisition finance, unquote" analysed the centrality of strong and trusted relationships with both traditional and alternative lenders. "The market for private equity firms seeking debt solutions is efficient. To ensure we get the call from debt advisers or banks or various types of intermediaries, we work on those relationships," explains Anthony Fobel, partner and head of private lending at BlueBay Asset Management. But with extremely limited track records, how easily are alternative lenders able to build up much-needed binding trust with GPs?

In the wake of Facebook's gargantuan $3bn offer for Snapchat, unquote" assessed investor appetite for photo apps and questioned how long consumer demand will last. "There is no sign of a decline in the explosive photo app market," says Jason Whitmire, partner at Earlybird. "It's the best business model on the internet, and Instagram can never get the same lock-in of the market that YouTube has for video sharing," he says. And with 10% of all photos in history snapped last month, it seems thirst for photos remains insatiable. But are these apps commercially viable?

unquote" explored the challenge posed to traditional financial services by fintech, which continues to grab the eye of investors. And the UK is taking the lead in Europe, seizing around 30% of global investment in the sector. We looked into the surprisingly positive impact of the financial crisis and the swathe of redundancies on the UK fintech space, and analysed prospects for growth.

Thanks to a strong final quarter in 2013, deal volume and value held firm across the spectrum, according to the latest unquote" UK Watch, published in association with Corbett Keeling. Results show that the volume of deals with an enterprise value of more than £150m picked up in Q4 compared to the previous quarter, with early-stage and expansion deals also improving. And there was good news in the HR department, too: 58% of survey respondents are actively hiring or planning to hire new staff depending on dealflow.

That's all from me this week but if you have any comments on this week's analysis, please send your thoughts to amy.king@incisivemedia.com.

You can continue to follow me and the rest of the unquote" team via @unquotenews for all the latest private equity and venture capital updates, and of course on unquote.com.

Amy King
Senior Reporter, unquote"

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