Global buyout firms Advent International has announced the first members of the team for its new office in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, with Tamas Nagy becoming head of the office and Natal
Global buyout firms Advent International has announced the first members of the team for its new office in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, with Tamas Nagy becoming head of the office and Natalie Polischuk named as a principal.
Nagy, who was born and brought up in Hungary, studied international business at Manchester School of Management and in 2000 joined ING Barings in London, spending three years working on acquisitions and disposals for companies operating in countries including Turkey, Ukraine and Azerbaijan.
He joined Advent International in 2003 and has worked on investments and exits in Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Over the past year, he has been building the company’s Ukraine network.
Polischuk is a Ukrainian national who gained an MBA at Harvard Business School and worked as an intern at Harris Investment Management in Chicago before returning to Kiev to work in the Western NIS Enterprise Fund, making and managing venture capital investments.
In 2003, she joined Delta Private Equity Partners in Moscow as a partner, leading two investments and two exits and acting as an interim chief executive of a portfolio company.
The Kiev office will complete the restructuring of Advent International Central Europe, which comprises regional centres in Prague, covering investment in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, in Warsaw, covering Poland and the Baltic states, and in Bucharest, covering Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. The Central Europe team now numbers 13 investment professionals as well as 11 at its Turkish investment partner, TurkVen.
‘We see the same great promise in Ukraine’s market for private equity investment that we have seen in other central and eastern European countries that have provided us with attractive investment opportunities over the past 13 years,’ says Advent partner Chris Mruck, who has been involved in building the Ukraine operation. ‘We aim to replicate our success here in Ukraine.’
Adds Nagy: ‘In the 12 months we have been building our presence in Ukraine, we have seen many good managers, sector markets opening and regulatory infrastructure being put in place. With a population of some 50 million, this country has huge potential for building businesses.’
Advent claims to be the longest established international private equity firm in central Europe. Since 1994, the team has backed 32 companies in seven countries, including the Bulgaria Telecommunications Company (BTG), acquired by AIG this year, and Terapia, the Romanian generic pharmaceuticals manufacturer acquired by Ranbaxy for USD324m in 2006.
The firm’s current portfolio includes Turkey’s Roma Plastik, a leading manufacturer of edge bands for furniture, Ultimo, Poland’s largest debt purchase and debt collection business, and FleetCor, a fuel card and fleet services business in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Founded in 1984, Advent has more than 100 investment professionals and offices in 15 countries in Western and Central Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia, and focuses on cross-border, strategic restructuring and growth opportunities in five core sectors. Since its launch, Advent has raised USD12bn in private equity capital and completed more than 200 buyout and private equity transactions valued at more than USD30bn in 35 countries.
