Finance Monthly January 2020 Edition

October. SoftBank is reportedly giving Neumann $1.7 billion to step down from his position as Chairman of the board at WeWork. With SoftBank’s takeover, WeWork’s valuation is expected to drop to $8 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. “The We Company” was described in its IPO filing as an umbrella with three major arms: WeWork, WeLive, and WeGrow. Neumann trademarked the term “We”, forcing WeWork to buy it for $5.9 million. His successors, Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham, have stepped into the role of Co-CEOs of WeWork as it attempts to navigate its future. To gauge investor appetite for IPOs and trading companies on traditional stock exchanges, Nexthash Group commissioned nationally representative research across over 2000 UK- based investors, and it revealed a clear mandate for change. A third - 33% - of Brits want more flexible ways to invest into businesses than stocks, shares or venture capital investments. A quarter of Brits - 24% - agree that seeing Unicorns and their IPOs fail or not fulfil their potential, such as Uber, has made investing into Initial Public Offerings unpalatable to them. One in five British investors - 21% - feel gold and real- estate does not give them the rapid return on investment that they can get from high- growth, internationally-facing companies. Three in 10 Brits - 28%- would consider using Digital Security Offerings if there was an unbiased, trustworthy source of information about them. More than two-thirds of British investors - 68% - would only trade or invest where there is security or protection against fraud for their investment. The research clearly demonstrates a desire for change from investors, with over a quarter of investors looking for more education of Digital Security Offers and a third wanting more flexible investment offers than stocks and shares. This is why, as we enter the decade of the 2020s, there is a case to be made for the rise of the digital exchange challenging the traditional stock market. Blockchain investment platforms can help make global growth finance for scaling technology businesses more transparent and easy to access. Both individual and institutional traders will be able to engage more with blockchain technology-backed trading, where the businesses are backed by a Digital Security Offering and there exists a greater potential to make rapid returns on their investments than the traditional routes. As this is adopted into the mainstream, it will revolutionise the way companies in Britain will access scale-up finance, how investors will access these businesses, and how illiquid shares can be traded into liquid capital in ways never imagined before. As Britain prepares for Brexit and WeWork shelve its IPO, new forms of investment could be crucial for these scaling businesses as well as global investors who want to maintain access to the UK marketplace. With these new products and offerings, they are offering both businesses and investors different options for investment and growth by using the volatility of cryptocurrencies and the high- “ “ In the 2010s, we have seen challenger banks do things differently from the traditional high street offer, and digital exchanges stand to shake up the way individuals think about trading in companies. 34 www.finance-monthly.com FINANCIAL INNOVATION & FINTECH - THE STOCK EXCHANGE