On September 19, 2024, Moscow hosted an event dedicated to the Russian retail sector, which was organized by the independent investment banking group Aspring Capital. Shareholders and top executives of major Russian retailers (including FMCG companies), as well as investors, consultants, and lawyers gathered to discuss capital raising and business sale success stories.

Suren Gortsunyan, co-founding partner and head of Corporate Practice at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners (RGD), participated in a workstream focused on financing at different stages of a company's life cycle. Moderated by Viktor Drozdov, managing partner at Insight Ridge, the workstream was also attended by Anton Makarov, founder and CEO of Divan.ru, Ekaterina Lukyanova, partner at Vostok Investments, and Alexey Semenov, COO of Synergetic.

The participants discussed the opportunities opened up by strategic deals, IPOs, and private placements, and how to prepare for them and properly perform business valuation. Suren Gortsunyan spoke about RGD's experience in structuring modern deals and the recent trends, as well as the most common types of deals currently seen in the market and the potential benefits that different types of financing opportunities.

"In today's environment, with high key interest rates and discouraging interest rates on loans, more companies are likely to consider funding through IPOs. However, company valuations are expected to go down. We are also seeing increased popularity of syndicated pre-IPO deals, where investors form consortia to invest in companies with a clear plan for going public. This enables businesses to raise capital more flexibly in the early stages of IPO preparation," Gortsunyan said.

Just as always, the event was rich in practical case studies and specific business recommendations.