“Equity Capital Markets or (ECM)”, are the words which will make you think of initial public offerings (IPOs) and companies raising billions of dollars in huge stock-market debuts. But there’s a lot more to the group than breaking records and making headlines in the process. Like other capital markets teams at banks, ECM groups can be described as a cross between investment banking and sales & trading. If you’re in this group, you’ll spend most of your time advising companies that want to raise equity capital. “Raising equity capital” means that the company sells a percentage of ownership in itself in exchange for cash – as opposed to raising debt, where the company maintains its ownership but must pay interest on the funds it raises. Whenever reputed corporations require a sizeable amount of equity infusion to achieve a higher rate of growth, they turn mostly to:

• Financial institutions like investment banks including well-known entities like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and CitiGroup.

• Equity Capital Markets or ECMs which cover a far greater area than stock markets and are perhaps the most reliable platforms for IPOs.

An IPO or Initial Public Offer is a privately-owned company’s first sale of shares to the public at large, transforming it into a publicly-owned organization and offering a launchpad of liquidity which may be used for debt repayments, Mergers & Acquisitions and removing working capital (WC) bottlenecks. It is perhaps the single-most-important moment for any private company as its IPO performance can leave a deep impression on its future. Equity capital markets (ECM) provides primary equity products including IPOs, follow-on offerings, rights issues, block trades, accelerated bookbuildings and equity-linked products. Deutsche Bank is the only firm to have bookrun the five largest IPOs ever: Alibaba, General Motors, Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and AIA Group.

The equity capital market is a subset of the broader capital market, where financial institutions and companies interact to trade financial instruments and raise capital for companies. Equity capital markets are riskier than debt markets and, thus, also provide potentially higher returns.

Instruments Traded in the Equity Capital Market

The following instruments are traded on the equity capital market:

Common shares

Preferred shares

Private equity

American depository receipts (ADR)
Global depository receipts (GDRs)
Futures

Options

Swaps