Attracts experience and expertise to board to accelerate growth

London, 16 July 2020: Appital, the Equity Capital Marketplace, today announced two senior board appointments to further accelerate its growth. Greg Bennett and Stephane Carty have been appointed as non-executive directors to support Appital’s mission to bring technological innovation and automation to equity capital markets. Appital unlocks liquidity opportunities for buyside firms, including in small and medium cap stocks, enabling them to execute large volumes, often in excess of five days of Average Day Volume (ADV), with minimal market impact or risk of price erosion.

The appointments come at a time when the drive to modernise equity capital markets is gathering pace and follows the recent appointment of Brian Guckian and Philipp Eberle to the management team.

Appital’s book-building and allocation methodology is transparent, unbiased and unconflicted, delivering a fair outcome for all market participants and unlocking liquidity that has historically been difficult to access.

Greg Bennett brings a unique overview of equity capital markets to the board. As the former Head of Capital Markets for EMEA and the Americas for Fidelity International he has first-hand experience of the liquidity challenges faced by the buy-side. In addition he brings sell side expertise gained as Partner and Managing Director in Equity Capital Markets and Equity Syndicate for Cazenove and JPMorgan Cazenove. He will provide invaluable perspective as Appital develops the platform’s capabilities to efficiently access liquidity and execution opportunities for market participants.

Stephane Carty has more than 23 years investment experience in trading and financial derivatives. He founded Fir Post Capital, a global volatility fund, in 2010 and subsequently Blackheath Capital Management. Previously, he was head of European Principal Strategies at Wachovia Securities International, and his early career included trading both agency and proprietary books at Commerzbank, Lehman Brothers and Bankers Trust. Stephane’s market structure expertise, his insights into operating in regulated environments and experience in successfully driving companies’ growth strategies will be invaluable as Appital continues to build out its core capabilities and improve access to dealflow.

Mark Badyra, CEO of Appital, said: “I am very excited to welcome Greg and Stephane to the Appital board of directors. Their industry insights and expertise are invaluable as we scale up our business and drive innovation in equity capital markets. We bring technology, automation and transparency to the equity capital markets empowering asset managers to take control of the book building process. ” The Appital platform will allow buy-side firms to gain greater exposure to deal flow opportunities they have not been able to access before, helping portfolio managers and heads of trading build a comprehensive picture of liquidity, including highly illiquid, small and mid-cap stocks.

Greg Bennett, NED, commented: “After a career in Equity Capital Markets as both an adviser and an investor, I have seen first hand the inefficiencies and opacity within the process and believe that technology has a key role to play in moving ECM forward. Illiquidity is a systemic issue within equity markets and has a real adverse cost of capital for issuers and diminishes investors’ returns. With Appital, there is the opportunity to address this key issue as well as provide a significant step change in the execution of ECM business across the market. I am excited to be working with the team to help deliver this vision.”

Stephane Carty, NED, added: “Appital truly challenges indoctrinated norms and inefficiencies across the small and mid cap ECM public market space. I am delighted to have joined the board and look forward to working with the rest of the Appital team over the coming years as we face the challenges ahead.”

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Sybille Mueller, Bill Yelverton, Streets Consulting
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