Private equity firm Carlyle Group has established a team to conduct private equity investments in Central and Eastern Europe to be headed by Warsaw-based managing director Ryszard Wojtkows
Private equity firm Carlyle Group has established a team to conduct private equity investments in Central and Eastern Europe to be headed by Warsaw-based managing director Ryszard Wojtkowski.
‘We see long-term opportunity in Central and Eastern Europe,’ says Carlyle co-founder and managing director Daniel A. D’Aniello. ‘Ryszard’s depth and breadth of experience in the financial markets will prove to be great assets as Carlyle establishes itself in this region.’
Wojtkowski says: ‘I am pleased to have the opportunity to lead Carlyle’s investment activities in a region with such excellent potential. Carlyle’s impressive global network and industry expertise will greatly benefit growing companies in Eastern and Central Europe.’
Carlyle’s team in the region will make growth capital and buyout investments in growing companies in sectors that draw upon Carlyle’s 20 years of experience, including consumer and retail, industrial, IT and media, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, and financial services.
The creation of a team for Central and Eastern Europe will extend the geographic scope of Carlyle’s investment capabilities to new European members Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and possibly also to Croatia, Serbia and Ukraine.
Wojtkowski joins Carlyle after seven years with Enterprise Investors, where he was managing partner, having been president of Novartis Consumer Health International in Switzerland between 1997 and 2000.
From 1991 to 1994 he was deputy general manager of Coca-Cola Poland Services, and subsequently president of Gerber Eastern Europe. Between 1983 and 1991, Wojtkowski served as chief of staff to successive Polish prime ministers, having begun his career as a lecturer at the Academy of Economics in Katowice.
