Private equity funds increase activity in Poland despite pandemic

Last year, the number of acquisitions by private equity funds in Poland increased by about one-third despite the pandemic and economic uncertainty, according to data collected by the consulting firm Bain & Company. More than half of the transactions took place in the fourth quarter alone, which is a good forecast for this year.

Last year, private equity funds invested in nearly 40 companies in Poland. The total value of the investments for which the transaction amount was disclosed, was approximately €0.5 billion. This means a drop in the total value year on year by almost 60 percent and is due to the fact that in 2020 there were no single acquisitions as large as the year before.

Last year, the funds were most popular among companies from the technology, health, and consumer goods sectors. Experts from Bain & Company expect that along with the expected improvement in the economic situation, the activity of funds on the Polish market will continue to grow.

“The private equity market almost froze in the first months of the pandemic. However, since the third quarter, we have already seen a clear recovery, and the last months of 2020 were record-breaking in terms of the number of transactions concluded,” Jacek Poświata, Managing Partner of Bain & Company Poland / CEE, said.

“Everything indicates that this trend will continue this year, mainly due to the expectations regarding the improvement of the economic situation and the fact that the funds have significant resources at their disposal for investments,” he added.

As in previous years, there were still more buyers than sellers on the Polish private equity market. Compared to almost 40 purchase transactions, last year the funds carried out over a dozen asset sale transactions. However, these were much larger transactions in terms of value, such as the sale of Allegro e-commerce platform shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange by Cinven, Permira, and Mid Europa Partners, sale of Polskie ePłatności by Innova Capital, or sale of ATM data center offering services by MCI Capital.

(WBJ)