Genesis Capital, one of the most established private equity players in Central Europe, has launched a new fund, Genesis Private Equity Fund IV (GPEF IV). It is already the sixth private equity fund of Genesis Capital in over 20 years since its establishment. In a similar manner to its predecessors, GPEF IV will focus on investments into leading companies with attractive growth potential domiciled in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Austria. At launch, GPEF IV has EUR 101 million at its disposal, the final size of the fund is expected to reach its maximum hard-cap of EUR 150 million by the year-end.
GPEF IV will invest in established companies with an attractive growth profile. It will focus on situations where successful founders are considering suitable successors, or are looking for capital to grow their businesses, expand internationally or invest in innovations, or alternatively on cases where multinational groups looking to divest their non-core business units are searching for a suitable partner. The fund will invest across a wide range of industries, but with preference for sectors where Genesis Capital funds have had a strong historical track record. These include B2B services, light and medium manufacturing, IT services and specialised retail/e-commerce and consumer-oriented services.
”We only invest into situations where we are relevant as a partner. We tend to team up with parties which are able to present a growth story that leads either to an achievement or to a strengthening of the already existing leading market position within the given business segment, in a given geography and within the dedicated investment lifetime. Through this strategy, we very often help the local leaders to become regional ones,” says Ondřej Vičar, Managing Partner at Genesis Capital Equity.
The new fund would strictly follow the same investment philosophy that has proven successful in the past and has become fundamental for the investment process. "We identify suitable investment opportunities using several basic criteria," explains Radan Hanzl, Partner at Genesis Capital Equity.
"The first and foremost, the company must have a strong growth potential and demonstrate the ability to formulate and successfully execute its plans. A competent and experienced management team is the most critical factor for this. We heavily rely on mutually entrusted partnership with top executives of our portfolio companies. They usually invest alongside us and share the up-side as well as the risks of the investment,“ concludes Radan Hanzl.
At the time of first closing, GPEF IV attracted EUR 101 million of commitments from the renowned institutional investors: the European Investment Fund (EIF), Česká spořitelna bank (member of the Erste group), two insurance companies of Vienna Insurance Group, asset managers Amundi Czech Republic, Raiffeisen Investment Company and Sirius Investment Company, Swiss fund-of-funds Alpha Associates, family office SPM Capital and a pension fund of a renowned global firm. As other potential investors have already expressed their interest to invest into GPEF IV, it is expected that GPEF IV size would reach its maximum hard-cap of EUR 150 million by the end of this year.
“The GPEF IV fundraising process has been the most robust and ambitious, and yet the fastest in the Genesis Capital history. The appetite of investors for GPEF IV fully mirrored not only the outstanding results of the predecessor fund, but as well the recent dynamic growth of the Genesis Capital group as such. Over the past five years, we have strengthened in multiple aspects and significantly increased our market presence. We have tripled the number of people working for the group, more than doubled the volume of assets under the management, restructured and streamlined the operations, as well as established an alternative fund line of Genesis Capital Growth funds,” concludes Ondřej Vičar.
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About Genesis Capital
Genesis Capital is a private equity group offering financing for growth and development to small and medium companies in Central Europe. Since its foundation in 1999, Genesis Capital has advised six private equity funds with a total volume exceeding EUR 300 million. These funds have already supported more than 6O companies.
The investors into Genesis Capital funds include renowned institutions such as the European Investment Fund (EIF), Česká spořitelna (member of the Erste group), Amundi Czech Republic (member of the international group Amundi), Kooperativa pojišťovna and Česká podnikatelská pojišťovna (both from the Vienna Insurance Group), Finnish fund-of-funds eQ Private Equity, Swiss fund-of-funds Alpha Associates, asset managers Raiffeisen Investment Company, Sirius Investment Company and RSJ Investments, family office SPM Capital or a pension fund of a renowned global company.
At present, Genesis funds hold investments in the following companies - GTH Multicatering, Quinta-Analytica, HP Tronic/Datart, Sanborn, Stangl Technik Holding, CN Group, 11 Entertainment Group, Summa Linguae Technologies, Conectart, R2B2 and Home Care Promedica.
Genesis Capital Private Equity Funds are private equity funds aimed at investments into companies in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Austria. At present, the investment fund Genesis Private Equity Fund IV (GPEF IV) is open for investments within this segment with an initial volume of EUR 101 million and size of one investment ranging between EUR 5 and 20 million.
Genesis Capital Growth Equity Funds represent growth equity funds focused on investments into smaller and mid-size companies primarily in the Czech Republic and Slovakia with a significant growth potential. Currently active fund is Genesis Growth Equity Fund I (GGEF I) with its current size of EUR 40 million and size of equity investments in the range of EUR 1-4 million.
For more information, please visit: www.genesis.cz/en
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PR representation of Genesis Capital:
David Vondra, Insighters
E-mail: david.vondra@insighters.cz; Tel.: +420 776 700 131