EP #282 - Stefan Muehlemann: Europe’s Leading Debt Capital Market Platform

Timestamps:

1:47 - Building an Asian food company in the 90s

14:05 - Assembling the Loanboox co-founders

29:34 - UN’s development goals

36:08 - Meditation and entrepreneurship

40:00 - The Sparks IPO program

About Stefan Muehlemann:

Stefan Muehlemann is the founder, chairman and former CEO at Loanboox, the independent debt issuing platform that connects public sector, large corporate and real estate borrowers with banks and institutional investors. He holds an MBA in Business Administration and Management from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and previously worked as a foreign exchange trader at UBS and LGT, as well as having been a lecturer at HSG and UZH.

His first business venture was back in the 90s, during his trading floor years, where he built Basel’s first Asian food chain, Asian Express, later sold in 1998. Much later, in 2015, he founded Loanboox, and Dario Zogg and Andi Burri joined later as co-founders. This arose from his own experience: as an investor (connected to companies like Omnibiz, Carvolution, and Futurae), Stefan was unsatisfied with conventional brokers. In contrast to conventional brokering, financing and investing through Loanboox is simple, transparent, safe and low-cost. They provide advice on financing strategy, bring together borrowers with financing needs and professional capital providers, and offer debt management tools, portfolio analysis and software solutions. Their track record is impressive: 170 active investors, transactions with a volume of EUR 28b closed in 12 countries, and 90/100 customer satisfaction.

Memorable Quotes:

"I’m not a person who’s easily satisfied. I don’t like rules. And that’s a sure recipe for an entrepreneur."

"Oftentimes the founder personality isn’t suited to being the CEO of a publicly listed company."

If you would like to listen to the story of another company in the Swiss financial sector, check out episode 227 with Simone Riedel Riley, general manager at the Swiss Technology Fund.

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