Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Migrant Venture Capitalists Flood Eastern Europe

A few months late but relevant to some stuff we'll be posting next week.

Hoisted from the link-vault, Institutional Investor, August 24, 2017:

Private Equity and VC Investors Pile Into Eastern Europe
Investor interest in Eastern European countries continued in 2016, with private equity and VC investments at their highest since 2009, according to a new report.

Investment in Central and Eastern European companies through private equity and venture capital hit its highest rate in seven years last year, according to a new report.

Total private equity investment in the region hit €1.6 billion ($1.9 billion) last year, while total private equity fundraising reached €621 million, a 62 percent increase over the previous year, according to trade group Invest Europe. Fund of funds accounted for the highest percentage of capital raised during 2016 (27 percent), followed by pension funds (16 percent). This is a marked difference from 2015, when capital came predominantly from government agencies (31 percent) and “other asset managers” (19 percent). Academic institutions, endowments and foundations — which, the report noted, traditionally had not embraced the region — accounted for 14 percent of the total fundraising in the region in 2016.

The report notes that the value of annual investment into the Central and Eastern European region has continued an upward trajectory since 2013, when the market bottomed out. The report included Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine in the region.

Emerging Europe’s appeal of late is underscored by the performance of the corresponding MSCI index. The index — which is composed of companies within the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey — returned 25.5 percent in 2016, compared with a 7.86 percent for the MSCI All Companies World Index....MUCH MORE
August 2017
Central and Eastern Europe Private Equity Statistics 2016

Related, April 4:
Saxo Bank Says Buy Europe