Alternative investments as a financing tool for small and medium enterprises

Alternative investments more than ever have come to the spotlight as they have attracted over the last few years the interest of asset owners and asset managers. The former are nothing but individual or institutional investors, such as pension schemes. The latter are the individuals or organizations that direct or allocate the available assets to the appropriate securities. Over the last decade there has been a shift from traditional, listed equity and fixed income to venture capital - private equity, private debt, exchange traded funds, and other investment means, also known as alternative investments. In this paper we investigate the parameters that affect small and medium enterprise financing through exchange traded funds and venture capital. We employ econometric models to find the link between the exchange traded funds and venture capital that invest in small and medium enterprises in a country and the economy of the relevant country. We find that the overall condition of the economy of a country as represented by the macroeconomic figures and certain indices is important for the choice of the country for the domiciliation, size or availability of exchange traded funds and venture capital.