New partnership targets federal equity investment wave
Gettyimages.com/Eugene Mymrin
By
Nick Wakeman
Clark Street Associates and Finalis team up as the Trump administration looks to acquire more equity stakes in companies.
L3Harris Technologies’ agreement with the Trump administration for a $1 billion equity investment may be the start of a new trend in the market.
In fact, two advisory forms have formed a partnership to help companies interested in signing their own equity pacts with the federal government.
Clark Street specializes in helping tech companies secure government grants, loans and strategic partnerships. Finalis is a broker-dealer and deal infrastructure platform provider.
They claim to be the only integrated platform that combines federal strategy with regulated transaction execution. Clark Street will deliver its federal equity advisory services through Finalis’ broker-dealer, compliance and transaction infrastructure.
“Washington’s expansion of its funding tools to include equity investments, in addition to traditional grants and loans, is exposing the limits of the traditional lobbying model,” Stephen Empedocles, CEO at Clark Street, said in a release Wednesday . “Technology companies need more than advocacy — they need a partner that can translate government priorities, understand complex technologies and help bridge the gap between the problems agencies are trying to solve and the companies capable of solving them.”
In addition to the L3 Harris agreement, the Trump administration has invested in chipmaker Intel and several mineral suppliers.
Clark Street and Finalis are predicting that the administration will accelerate its use of equity investments as a way to support critical industries, which means that companies need to engage with the federal government in new ways.
“What has emerged is a new category of transactions that sis between government programs and private capital market, one that neither the traditional Beltway advisory model nor standard investment banking practices were designed to manage and support,” the firms said in their announcement.
“Federal equity introduces a category of transactions that requires public-sector context and private-market discipline,” said Federico Baradello, founder and CEO of Finalis. “Our role is to provide the regulated broker-dealer, compliance, and execution infrastructure that makes this type of advisory possible at scale.”
Clark Street and Finalis have scheduled a webinar for Feb. 24 to explain more about how the service will work.