ABC Data S.A., the first buy-out investment from MCI.EuroVentures portfolio, was sold to one of the European IT distribution tycoons – ALSO Group. The managers of the Fund delivered an over two times return on investment. The transaction was carried out as a sale of business, preceded by announcement of a call for 100 percent of the shares.
As a result of the sale of the business ABC Data and ABC Data Marketing, the Fund will receive PLN 147.6 million and PLN 35 million respectively, a total of PLN 182.6 million. In response to the announcement issued prior to the transaction, 34.7 million shares were collected which, together with ABC Data’s securities held by MCI Capital TFI before the announcement, amounted in total to 113 million shares (90.6 percent of all the shares).
‘ABC Data under the wings of MCI.EuroVentures went through a digital transformation – by reshaping the business model, we brought about a situation where more than 85 percent of the Company’s transactions were carried out through digital channels. We developed the company in the entire CEE region, and we optimised its business model in cost and working capital terms,’ comments Maciej Kowalski, Managing Partner for the MCI.EuroVentures fund. ‘Although the industry was exposed to the tax and regulatory risks, we achieved a favourable sale and, eventually, an exit from the investment,’ he sums up.
This year, the MCI.EuroVentures buy-out fund is planning another exit from the investment. It is very likely to conduct the sale of ATM, a leading company in the data centre market in Poland. The company is now the only independent and meaningful data centre operator in the metropolitan area of Warsaw, which accounts for 60-70 percent of the national market. Besides ATM, the MCI.EuroVentures fund portfolio includes IAI S.A. – the largest e-commerce SaaS platform operating in the CEE region and the e-travel SaaS platform as a new business initiative, Hungary’s NetRisk or Mobiltek.
The fund still concentrates on new investments – both in Poland and in the CEE region. It focuses on medium-sized leaders in the digital market or digital ecosystem, companies who are the leading entities in a specific area of activity with preference given to the industries such as TMT, retail and consumer, financial services, medical care, transport and logistics, B2B services, and software. Forms of the investments carried out may include buyouts or management buyouts, leveraged buyouts, pre-IPO and public-to-private transactions.
Two of the previously completed MCI.EuroVentures transactions were carried out last year: LifeBrain and Dotpay/eCard, that followed Netia (2015) and Wirtualna Polska (2016).