Middle market:
The market for privately-placed debt and equity capital available for generally sizeable investments in established medium-sized and larger enterprises.
Pension governance:
The policies and practices associated with administering a pension fund. Pools or pooling vehicles: Generic terms for the funding mechanism utilized by many financial institutions or investors (frequently for reasons of sharing costs and risks) to make debt or equity investments.
Private placement:
A generic term for debt and equity investments of all types in private capital markets. Term lending and venture financing can fall in this category, though these tend to be identified independently.
Seasoned offering:
The stocks periodically issued by active firms with established listings on public securities exchanges.
Shareholder activism:
The process by which an individual or institutional holder of stocks in a firm actively asserts ownership rights to ensure value. This usually happens by a shareholder interest in corporate governance.
Small and medium-sized business:
Enterprises so-defined because they have total assets, employees or sales that are comparatively small in size (e.g., 500 employees or less). Most such firms are private (i.e., they are not listed on public securities exchanges) and closely-held.
Small-capitalization (small-cap) stocks:
Public equity of small dollar worth, determined by multiplying the price by the number of shares outstanding. Such capitalization is frequently defined as being less than $1 billion.
Small dollar projects:
A generic term for investment deals requiring very small amounts of financing. In the case of equity, this is sometimes defined as being below $500,000, and in the case of debt, below $50,000.
Start-up:
A new business at an especially early stage of development.
Subordinated debt:
See Mezzanine financing. Syndicate or Syndication: A generic term that usually refers to a partnership of financial institutions and/or investors on a single transaction (i.e., a co-investment) or as part of a more formal pooling arrangement (e.g., a corporate syndicate, a limited partnership).
Trustees:
See Fiduciaries. Trusted pension funds: By far, the largest component of the employer-sponsored fund universe whereby funds are legally-registered according to a trust agreement.
Venture capital:
High risk financing supplied to new and developing enterprises, unsecured by collateral and involving a significant long-term equity position.