Because no one knows a business better than its management team, measurable results are easier to achieve when a company's managers are also its shareholders. As a shareholder, Enterprise Investors is keen to maximize the managershareholder synergy to increase the value of each portfolio company. We achieve this by working closely with the management team when acquiring a stake in its business. This team carries out the intentions of the company's shareholders and also helps shape its strategies, objectives, and operating plans. What matters most in a management buyout is the motivation of the company's managers to meet not only the immediate strategic goals but also those spanning the next few years.
To help develop management buyout and buyin transactions, since 2004 Enterprise Investors has sponsored the MBI & MBO Club – an informal networking organization affiliating managers from Central and Eastern Europe who are interested in pursuing management buyouts or buyins. We completed management buyins in Skarbiec, Gamet and Artima, the last two thanks to contacts made at club meetings.
SKARBIEC
Skarbiec is one of the oldest asset management companies in Poland. The company has secured a significant part of Poland's highly competitive investment funds market, which is dominated by fund
managers tied to major banks. Skarbiec enjoys such a strong position thanks to its management team's creative approach to new product development, as well as to its sound management of funds entrusted to them by clients.
In 2007 our fund bought 100% of the shares of Skarbiec, completing the first takeover of an asset management company by a private equity fund in Central and Eastern Europe. Soon after the transaction we sold a 7% stake in Skarbiec to a group of 12 key managers, who also benefit from a management options scheme that we introduced.
The managers of Skarbiec have invested considerable resources of their own alongside us to purchase shares in their company, thereby demonstrating their confidence in the continuing growth of the business. For us as investors, this represents an additional guarantee of success.
Our decision to invest in Skarbiec was based on several factors. The experience and competence of the management team were fundamental, as was the favorable macroeconomic outlook that facilitated the rapid growth of mutual funds. These, together with our financial sector expertise, are helping raise the company's value.
"Enterprise Investors, as co-owner of Skarbiec, actively supports the company's growth. The investor's experience in the financial services sector allowed Skarbiec to develop much more dynamically in recent years. Also, the change of ownership has created many new opportunities for us."
Bogusław Grabowski, President of Skarbiec Asset Management Holding