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Estonian Development Fund, SmartCap and European Investment Bank announced a call to find a private fund manager for the direct investment portfolio that includes 15 start-ups. The expression of interest must be submitted by October3^rd. The results of the call will be disclosed by the end of the year.

European Investment Bank (EIB) was involved in the project in order to organise a transparent competition. According to Bruno Robino, representative of the EIB, the work done by the Estonian public sector to enliven the local venture capital market deserves credit. “The market has already been created, however, a viable venture capital market should be based on the private sector. It is positive that the Estonian government finds the need for these steps important and is implementing them,” he said.

Robino added that finding a fund manager from the private sector to manage tens of millions of euros from the taxpayers must not only be fair but also appear fair. “SmartCap has done everything in their power to make the competition fair for all potential participants,” he said.

Up to 10 million euros for continuation investments

Sille Pettai, Fund Manager of SmartCap, said that the private fund manager is expected to create a new fund, manage direct investments’ portfolio and make follow-on investments. “The existing shares of the Estonian Development Fund and Early Fund II will be incorporated, as well as up to 10 million euros for follow-on investments," she said. Teams with experience in early phase investments are expected to participate from Estonia and abroad.

The candidates that make it to the second round will be able to get acquainted with the portfolio of SmartCap in depth, after which they will be expected to shape their visions and submit their tenders. The second round will be closed in the end of November. The winner will be chosen before Christmas, taking into consideration the candidates’ previous experience and vision for the future. This will be followed by the last stage, including negotiations with the winning fund manager, which will result in the creation of a new fund. The new fund should commence its operations in Q1 2017.

Public funds will only be invested together with private investors

The winner of the call must invest and manage the fund in market conditions. The returned capital and portfolio companies from which SmartCap will exit before December 31, 2016, will not be included in the new fund.

The fund managed by the private fund manager will retain earlier investment principles, as all the ventures made into the companies' equity capital will be joint investments with private investors.

The direct investments will continue to be managed as before until the private fund manager is appointed. Applications can be filed until October 3^rd, 2016, to smartcap@reorganisation.ee. Further information about the terms and conditions of the call can be found from the website of SmartCap.

Further information:

Sille Pettai

SmartCap Fund Manager

Sille.Pettai@Smartcap.ee

+372 5231 675

www.smartcap.ee

Mari Vavulski

SmartCap Board Member

Mari.Vavulski@Smartcap.ee

+372 5326 8116

www.smartcap.ee 

BPM Mezzanine Fund SICAV-SIF, SCA (BPM) has invested in the leading Baltic data center operator DEAC to support its growth. The investment will be used for improving technical equipment and infrastructure, as well as refinancing a part of existing liabilities. DEAC has built over the years a very strong platform in terms of technical infrastructure and product portfolio. Among its clients the company has a number of industry leaders in the Baltics as well as in Russia.

Commenting on the deal, the CEO of DEAC, Mr. Andris Gailitis, noted that with the help of BPM the
company is now very well positioned to further strengthen its foothold in its core markets Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia and can pursue more aggressive expansion route. “We believe our product portfolio which ranges from cloud services to complex custom-made data security solutions is very competitive.”

Partner of BPM Capital, Mr. Martin Reinson added: “We appreciate highly the opportunity to work with one of the market leaders in the Baltics. DEAC has demonstrated flexibility and ambition to grow in such competitive market. The management team has been deeply involved in shaping the local data center services landscape over the past 17 years and combines a unique skillset needed to succeed. We look forward to cooperating with DEAC and are eager to support their expansion plans.”

For further enquiries, please contact:

BPM Capital: Martin Reinson, tel: +372 605 0072, e-mail: martin.reinson@bpmcapital.eu

DEAC: Andris Gailitis, tel: 371 6707 2100, e-mail: AGailitis@deac.eu

More information about BPM Capital

BPM Capital (www.bpmcapital.eu) is an independent investment manager operating out of two offices, in Tallinn and Warsaw. It has been founded and is managed by Kalmer Kikas, Martin Reinson, Paweł Zabrzycki and Priit Veering. BPM is supported by prominent international and domestic institutional investors. BPM was originated through the Baltic Innovation Fund initiative created by cooperation between Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the European Investment Fund. Portfolio companies include MarkIT, Optometrijas Centrs, Eskaro and DEAC.

More information about DEAC

DEAC (www.deac.eu) is secure data center services provider headquartered in Latvia. It is providing cloud services, dedicated servers, colocation services, network services, managed services and data security solutions. The Company has two physical data centers in Riga with a total of 300 RACKs now and 400 more to come in next stage, POPs in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Moscow, and Kiev.

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Euroopa Investeerimispanga ettepanekul määratud sõltumatu valikukomitee valis Eesti Arengufondi ja SmartCapi korraldatud erafondivalitseja konkursi võitjaks Tera Ventures’i. Tera Ventures on Eesti turul tegutsemist alustav riskikapitali fondivalitseja, kuhu kuuluvad SmartCapi senised investeeringutejuhid Andrus Oks, Stanislav Ivanov ning nõunik James Patrick McDougall.

Euroopa Investeerimispanga (EIB) esindaja Bruno Robino sõnul olid kõigil teises voorus pakkumise teinud meeskondadel omad tugevused. Tera Ventures’i kui võitja tugevustena toodi välja pakkumise finantstingimuste atraktiivsus ning selge pikaajalise visiooni olemasolu nii portfelliettevõtete väärtuse kasvatamise kui enda rolli osas Eesti riskikapitalimaastikul. Samuti tunnustati meeskonna häid teadmisi kohalikust riskikapitaliturust ning seda, et tegu on end varasemalt tõestanud ja kokkutöötanud meeskonnaga, mis on era- ja riskikapitalifondidesse investeerimisel investorite jaoks üks võtmeküsimusi ja fondivalitseja pikaajalise juhtimisvõimekuse näitaja.  


EIB esindaja Bruno Robino ütles, et valikukomitee nägi oodatult kõrget kandidaatide taset. Robino sõnul muutub olemasoleva portfelli valitsemine riigile soodsamaks tänu pakutud madalamale valitsemistasule. “Kuna uue fondivalitseja meeskond investeerib portfelli ka omakapitali, on fondivalitsejal oluline lisamotivatsioon portfelli väärtust maksimaalselt kasvatada,” rõhutas Robino.


SmartCapi fondijuht Sille Pettai sõnul algavad nüüd läbirääkimised reorganiseerimise tehniliste detailide osas Tera Ventures'i esindajatega. Läbirääkimiste tulemusel loodetakse anda investeerimisportfelli juhtimine üle erafondivalitsejale 2017. aasta I kvartalis. Teiseks ja kolmandaks jäänud kandidaatide pakkumised on pandud ootele, et Tera Ventures’ga läbirääkimiste ebaõnnestumisel jätkata läbirääkimisi sobiva lahenduse osas pingereas järgmise meeskonnaga.


Kokku osales konkursil kuus meeskonda, kellest neli kvalifitseerusid teise vooru ning said sellega võimaluse tutvuda olemasoleva otseinvesteeringute portfelliga, kujundada strateegia investeeringute edasiseks haldamiseks ning teha lõpliku pakkumise EIB ettepanekul määratud valikukomiteele. Edasipääsenud meeskonnad olid kõik pikaajalise era- või riskikapitali taustaga, mille koosseisu tugevdasid rahvusvahelised liikmed.


Reorganiseerimise järgselt jätkab sõltumatu erafondivalitseja investeerimistegevust varasemate põhimõtete järgi – investeeringuid portfelliettevõtete omakapitali tehakse üksnes koos teiste erainvestoritega. Konkursi võitja peab investeerima uude fondi omakapitali ning juhtima seda turutingimustel. Uuele erafondivalitsejale ei anta üle seni väljutud investeeringutest saadud tulu ega osalusi, millest Arengufond või SmartCap väljub enne uue fondivalitseja tegevuse algust.


Käesoleva konkursiga saab läbi järjekordne etapp Eesti Arengufondi ja SmartCapi tegevuse reorganiseerimisest. Varasemalt on reorganiseerimise osana juba toimunud seiretegevuse üleandmine Riigikogu Kantselei juurde moodustatud Arenguseire Keskusele ja Eesti idufirmade tugiüksuse Startup Estonia tõstmine KredExi koosseisu ning hetkel on SmartCapis juba uue fondifondi kontseptsiooni raames käimas kiirendifondidesse investeerimise protsess.


Lisainfo:
Sille Pettai
SmartCapi fondijuht
Sille.Pettai@smartcap.ee
+372 523 1675

Estonian Limited Partnership Fund is a new, flexible and tax-transparent investment vehicle for private equity and venture capital investments.

DERLING partners Hannes Vallikivi, Rolan Jankelevitsh and Andres Siigur in cooperation with experts from CMS London and Luxembourg offices and ESTVCA Legal Committee prepared a report for EBRD on Estonia’s new investment fund legislation back in 2016. The report focused on regulation and taxation of private equity and venture capital funds with the aim to assess new regulation’s suitability to the market needs.

As the result of the analysis, the Ministry of Finance made several amendments to the draft law and with the Investment Funds Act of 14 December 2016, a new regime of Estonian limited partnership funds (LPF) has been enacted. LPF is an investment vehicle designed primarily for closed - end collective private equity and venture capital investments.

The new regime has been designed along the lines of the best qualities of limited partnership structures of various countries, which have been traditionally considered as attractive jurisdictions for collective private equity and venture capital investments, such as UK, Luxembourg and Jersey.

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Flexibility

The IFA sets forth a limited set of mandatory rules, which each LPF must comply with. It leaves remarkable flexibility and freedom for the partners to agree in the limited partnership agreement (LPA) on the rules applicable to the LPF.

Among others, the partners have the right to regulate the following matters in the LPA:

• partnership's purpose and investment policy;
• duration of the partnership;
• partners’ contributions, including capital and loan;
• allocations, sharing and distributions of profits;
• payment of carried interest;
• appointment, removal and withdrawal of general and limited partners;  
• powers of the partners;
• payment of fees and expenses, including management fees, establishment costs, transaction costs, and general partner’s fee income;  
•  transfer of partners’ interests;
• termination of the partnership.

Structure and Management

Each LPF must have at least one general partner (GP) and one limited partner (LP). Furthermore, as it is an alternative investment fund, it must invest funds raised from at least two investors (e.g. the GP and the LP or two LPs).

An LPF may operate as a self-governed partnership or a limited partnership managed by a management company.

The assets of a self-governed LPF are managed by its GP. In the event a management company has been contracted, the management company has the authority to manage the assets according to the management agreement between the LPF and the management company.

LPs may engage in the management of the LPF according to the rights given to them by the LPA.

Partners' liability

The GP has unlimited liability for the obligations of the LPF. The liability of an LP is limited to the amount of the LP’s contribution to the LPF, if the LP refrains from participating in the daily management of the LPF.

To provide clarity with respect to the liability of LPs, the IFA sets forth the so-called safe harbour regime, whereby an LP is considered not to participate in the daily management of the LPF if, among other things, the LP:

• represents the LPF under a specific power of attorney;
• exercises general LPs’ rights arising from laws or set forth in the LPA;
• advises the GP or the management company in matters pertaining to the management of the LPF, unless such advice constitutes binding instructions, which the GP or the management company must adhere to;
• guarantees or secures the obligations of the LPF;
• participates in amending the LPA;
• exercises voting rights or otherwise expresses an opinion on any of the following matters:
• continuing or terminating the activities of the LPF;
• concluding transactions for the acquisition of assets by the LPF;
• transferring or encumbering partners’ interests;  
• amending the investment policy of the LPF;
• merger of the LPF
• appointment of a partner;
• withdrawal or removal of a partner;
• making a transaction between the LPF and its partner.

Establishment

An LPF is established by the conclusion of its LPA and its registration with the Estonian Commercial Register (äriregister). The LPF is registered with the Estonian Commercial Register on the basis of an application executed and submitted by:

• the GP or each GP if the LPF has more than one GP,
• and unless the LPF is established as a self-governed partnership, the management company.

A statement by the Estonian FSA (Finantsinspektsioon) confirming that the GP or the management company has been properly registered or authorised as an alternative investment fund manager (AIFM) must be appended to the application.

An application is normally processed and the LPF is registered within five business days.

Confidentiality of LP-s

An LPF does not have to publish the identity of its LPs or the amount of the investments made by each LP.

Authorisations

An LPF is an alternative investment fund within the meaning of Directive 2011/61/EU (AIFMD). For this reason, at least one GP or the management company must be

• authorised to operate as an AIFM in Estonia or another Member State of the European Economic Area, or
• registered with the Estonian FSA as an AIFM.

An Estonian company can be registered with the Estonian FSA as an AIFM if it intends to operate as an AIFM but is not required to obtain an authorisation of AIFM according to the exception laid down in Article 3 of the AIFMD. To register with the Estonian FSA, the company must provide the FSA with information on the LPF and its planned activities. As an AIFM, it must submit its annual reports to the Estonian FSA.

Tax transparency

The availability of a fiscally transparent fund vehicle has been widely recognised as a critical condition for creating an attractive environment for investment fund structuring. This condition has now been met in Estonia by introducing a full fiscal transparency regime applicable to LPFs.

Fiscal transparency means that an LPF is not considered a taxpayer or an Estonian resident for the purposes of Estonian tax laws, and the income earned by an LPF is immediately allocated to its investors in proportion to their stakes in LPFs.

One of the objectives of such “see-through” approach is to ensure that the foreign investors of the LPF are treated, tax-wise, in exactly the same way as when investing directly in company shares. One important consequence of fiscal transparency is that the foreign investors should normally have full access to double taxation treaties between the residence state of the investor and the source state of the respective income.

In the case of non-resident investors, the LPF’s income allocated to such investors will not be taxed in Estonia in most cases. Such income will only be taxed in Estonia in situations where the same income, should it have been earned by a non-resident directly, would be taxed in Estonia. Such situations exclusively include income from Estonian real estate (capital gain, rental and interest income). The non-resident investors will only have to declare the investment income earned through the LPF, if such income is taxable in Estonia.

An LPF itself will have to submit annual declarations to the tax authority regarding the income earned, the investors of the LPF, the share of LPF’s income allocated to each investor and the tax residence of each investor.

Sanoma Baltics AS is the operator of classified portals auto24.ee, veetehnika.ee, rasketehnika.ee, mototehnika.ee and kuldnebors.ee. The company has around 20 employees in Tallinn and Tartu offices, creating a turnover of €4.4 million.

LHV Varahaldus

The pension funds managed by LHV have over 170,000 clients. The volumes of the pension funds managed by LHV Varahaldus as at the end of February amounted to €991million.

Contacts for enquiries:

Oliver Kullman                                Margus Tomberg         

BaltCap, Partner                               Sanoma Baltics, CEO

Tel: +372 6650 280                          Tel: +372 6208 884

oliver.kullman@baltcap.com              margus.tomberg@sanoma.ee             

www.baltcap.com                             www.sanoma.ee

BaltCap acquires majority in TREV-2.

About TREV-2 Group

AS TREV-2 Group is a leading infrastructure construction company in Estonia, with its history and experience dating back to the 1960s. The company’s main activities include road construction, repair and maintenance and environmental construction. In addition, TREV-2 operates several gravel, sand and limestone quarries, and produces asphalt and a range of road safety products. The company has 350 employees and is headquartered in Tallinn.

About East Capital Explorer

East Capital Explorer AB is a Swedish investment company, offering investment opportunities in Eastern Europe, where the Baltic countries represent the company’s largest investment region. The company primarily invests in unlisted assets within the private equity and real estate segments.

Livonia Partners, a pan-Baltic private equity firm, and Santa Monica Networks management, agreed to acquire Santa Monica Networks Latvia and Santa Monica Networks Lithuania, leading providers of network and IT security solutions in the Baltic region, from Santa Monica Networks Group. In a related transaction, Elisa Corporation of Finland has entered into an agreement to acquire Santa Monica Networks companies in Finland and Estonia.

“Santa Monica Networks has been a long-term trusted technology partner to customers in the region. The company operates in a high-growth business area benefiting from data traffic surges on the back of on-going systems integration and development of cloud and IoT solutions, as well as cybersecurity gaining in importance,” says Kristīne Bērziņa, a founding partner at Livonia.

The Santa Monica Networks investment is the third for Livonia Partners Fund I, whose strategy is to invest in medium-sized companies in the Baltics that are well-managed and growing. The fund acquired Estonia-based sauna manufacturer Ha Serv in February last year, and in October invested in Hortes, Estonia’s leading home and gardening retail brand.

Santa Monica Networks in Latvia and Lithuania had revenue of 23.4 million euros in 2016. The company’s 52 employees include many top Baltic networking and security experts. Santa Monica Networks provides solutions to large telecommunication, IT and media companies, public sector organizations, financial institutions and industrial companies, among others. The company works with several leading global networking, data centre and security infrastructure vendors, such as Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks.

The transaction will give Livonia a controlling stake in the Lithuanian and Latvian operations of Santa Monica Networks, with management retaining a significant stake. “This is very much a people business and we’re proud to team up with an experienced management team and their outstanding dedicated team to continue developing the business in line with its growth potential. That is Livonia’s approach,” Mindaugas Utkevičius, Livonia’s founding partner in Lithuania.

“Our partnership with Livonia creates great conditions for our continued growth and development, also in terms of the know-how and networks that the fund and its partners can share,” says Uģis Bērziņš, Chairman of the Board of Santa Monica Networks Latvia.

For further information contact:

Kristīne Bērziņa, Partner, Livonia Partners

+371 2834 4808, kristine.berzina@livoniapartners.com

Mindaugas Utkevičius, Partner, Livonia Partners

+370 6207 1777, mindaugas.utkevicius@livoniapartners.com

Uģis Bērziņš, CEO and founder, Santa Monica Networks SIA

+371 2920 9944, ugis.berzins@smn.lv

Livonia Partners is a private equity investment firm based in the Baltics, currently managing €83 million as part of the Livonia Partners Fund I and the Livonia Partners EIF Co-Investment Fund. Run by founders Kaido Veske, Kristīne Bērziņa, Rain Lõhmus, and Mindaugas Utkevičius, its investors are domestic and international financial institutions. Livonia was partly originated through the Baltic Innovation Fund (BIF), a common initiative of the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania and the European Investment Fund.

www.livoniapartners.com

Santa Monica Networks is the Baltic region’s go-to provider for network integration, design and installation services, as well as IT security and data centre solutions. Clients include large business, government and financial institutions, among others. The company works with leading global vendors of networking, data centre and security infrastructure.

www.smn.lv

www.smn.lt 

BaltCap is planning to launch a regional investment fund worth €50 million in cooperation with Kredex and Baltic pension funds to offer growth capital to SMEs in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The fund is meant for local and Baltic businesses that want to launch new products and services, expand their operations through purchase and takeover deals and whose ambition is to grow and become market leaders, Baltcap said.

The new fund will be created in cooperation with BaltCap, the European Investment Fund (EIF), Kredex and local pension funds, which allows pension funds to invest in Baltic companies to strengthen their equity capital. The planned size of the fund is €50 million.

According to Martin Kõdar, a managing partner at BaltCap, there are excellent growth opportunities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in traditional as well as new branches of economy. "The region's SMEs need investments to retain their competitive ability and increase productivity," he added. "We see that the demand for growth capital is still big in Baltic countries."

Kodar noted that equity capital investments in the private sector in the region amount to 50 percent of the EU average. "With risk capital investments, the ratio has improved in the past few years thanks to international investors, but there is still not enough growth capital," he said.

EIF: BaltCap a leading fund manager in region

According to deputy chief executive of EIF Roger Havenith, BaltCap has proven itself as a leading fund manager in the region and the new fund will expand the scope even more. He said that the Baltcap Growth Fund being prepared by Baltcap is the fifth fund that will be brought to the market with support from EIF in the framework of the Baltic Innovation Fund initiative, adding that the EIF is happy with BaltCap's positive impact on the regional capital market.

The creation of the fund will soon be complete. BaltCap has entered into initial agreements with institutional investors to attract more than €40 million worth of assets. Among bigger investors are Swedbank's pension funds and, through the Baltic Innovation Fund, EIF and Kredex as well.

The establishment of the fund must be approved by the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority and the fund must be entered into Estonia's commercial register. The application to set up the fund has already been submitted to the Financial Supervision Authority.

SpectX has announced raising investment from Karma Ventures for product development and growth. The startup founded by former security engineers at Skype and Swedbank is developing a powerful analytics software solution for rapid processing of unlimited amounts of data. The product will be publicly launched in autumn 2017.

The company’s technology innovation enables handling of machine generated data in its original location rather than loading it into separate tools and databases for processing. It enables analysts to work and experiment with data faster than is possible with existing tools without fear of errors halting their mission.

SpectX’ CEO Renee Trisberg says that the investment is used mainly for product development. “We have offered SpectX’ solution for testing to several technology companies and government organisations experiencing similar restraints in log and data analysis as we were seeing during our previous career. Their feedback is active and positive, showing strong demand for enhanced features and scalability,“ Trisberg noted.

According to Margus Uudam, founding partner of Karma Ventures, the investors were impressed by the elegant technology behind SpectX. “There is no other product in the market as fast and flexible as SpectX for analysing large unstructured data sets. The professionalism of the team and the initial product they have built show significant potential,” Uudam said.

As the size of digital universe is doubling every two years, data-based decisions are becoming an inescapable necessity for enterprises and governments. Extracting information from machine generated data poses its challenges because of its high volume, volatile structure and scattered storage. There are many log analysis and business intelligence solutions in the market but most of them are priced by data volume and offer limited analytics features compared to SpectX.

SpectX’ solution is currently used by several successful technology enterprises, among them Starship Technologies, a company developing small self-driving robotic delivery vehicles. Its speed, flexibility and ease of use is praised by data scientists, security incident handlers as well as system administrators.

Documents are made freely available in the hope that they will help to educate the Estonian startup community, speed up foundation, team-building and early stage investment process, and lower the legal costs.

Startup Estonia and Estonian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association promote industry-standard legal documents in Estonia so startups and investors can focus on company and deal specific matters. These documents are made freely available in the hope that they will help to educate the Estonian startup community, speed up foundation, team-building and early stage investment process, and lower the legal costs.

However, these documents should be seen as starting point only and should be tailored to meet specific circumstances because no two companies or investments are the same.

The documents have been drafted by a working group of EstVCA Legal Committee headed by Antti Perli (Ellex Raidla) and including Kristel Raidla-Talur (Cobalt), Maivi Ots (Eversheds Sutherland), Valter Võhma (Hedman Partners), Toomas Prangli (Sorainen), Kuldar-Jaan Torokoff (Fort Legal), Ulla Helm (Glimstedt) and Ergo Blumfeldt (Triniti).

Neither Startup Estonia, EstVCA nor any member of its committees or working groups takes any responsibility for the content of the documents or the consequences of using them and none of the documents should be construed as legal advice for any particular facts or circumstances.

IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT LEGAL ADVICE IS SOUGHT BEFORE USING THE DOCUMENTS!

About EIF

About Baltic Innovation Fund

Additional information:

Livonia Partners, a pan-Baltic private equity firm, together with LHV Pension Funds and Ambient Sound Investments, agreed to invest in Cgates, a leading Lithuanian provider of cable television and internet services.  

The investor consortium led by Livonia Partners will invest into a significant minority stake in Cgates to support growth of the company and further network and technology upgrades. The transaction is pending regulatory approval.  

“In the growing Lithuanian market, Cgates as a leading player has proven its ability to grow organically and through acquisitions,” says Mindaugas Utkevičius, a founding partner at Livonia.  

With nearly 300 employees and consolidated sales of €19.5 million in 2016, Cgates is Lithuania’s second-largest cable network operator. It provides cable and digital television, fixed telephony and fibre-optic broadband internet to more than 270,000 subscribers in 18 cities. The Vilnius-based company is currently owned by the founders of former Cgates’s parent Starman, which was bought out by Elisa Corporation of Finland earlier this year. 

“The new investors support our strategy of becoming the product leader, strengthening our brand and the organisation, and seeking further consolidation opportunities. We aim to become the best in class platform to a wider audience and look forward to partnering with Livonia for their expertise in this sector,” says Cgates CEO Petras Kirdeika. 

“This transaction successfully completes the series of steps we have taken over the course of the past two years to restructure our telecom operations in the Baltics,” says Indek Kuivallik, the Chairman of Polaris Invest. “Lithuanian market has vast potential and we are now uniquely positioned to make the most of it.”  

The investment is the fourth for Livonia Partners Fund I, whose strategy is to invest in medium-sized companies in the Baltics that are well-managed and growing. Last year the fund acquired Ha Serv, an Estonia-based sauna manufacturer, and Hortes, Estonia’s leading home and gardening retail brand, and earlier this year Livonia invested in IT network and security firm Santa Monica Networks in Latvia and Lithuania. 

“This is the fund’s second investment in telecoms and technology, an attractive sector for investments,” Utkevičius notes. His partners Rain Lõhmus and Kristīne Bērziņa formerly held roles with Starman and Lattelecom, respectively. Utkevičius also welcomed the participation of Ambient Sound Investments, the investment firm originated by the founders of Skype.  

For further information:

+370 6207 1777
mindaugas.utkevicius@livoniapartners.com

Livonia Partners

Livonia Partners is a private equity investment firm based in the Baltics, currently managing €83 million as part of the Livonia Partners Fund I and the Livonia Partners EIF Co-Investment Fund. Run by founders Kaido Veske, Kristīne Bērziņa, Rain Lõhmus, and Mindaugas Utkevičius, its investors are domestic and international financial institutions. Livonia was partly originated through the Baltic Innovation Fund (BIF), a common initiative of the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania and the European Investment Fund.

www.livoniapartners.com

LHV Pension Funds Estoninia

LHV Pension Funds Estonia are one of the largest Baltic pension fund managers with more than 170,000 clients and €1 billion assets under management. It is part of Estonia’s financial group LHV, whose shares trade on the Nasdaq Baltic market.  

www.lhv.ee/en/pension/fund-management

Ambient Sound Investments

Ambient Sound Investments is an independent investment vehicle established in 2003 by the four founding engineers of Skype Technologies. The company now managers €100 million of its partners’ assets with a focus on technology-related firms. 

http://www.asi.ee/

Cgates

Cgates is one of Lithuania’s largest cable entertainment and communication companies. Established in 1991, it now provides cable and digital television, fixed telephony and broadband internet to more than 270,000 customers in 18 cities.  

http://www.cgates.lt

Background information:

2016 market highlights:

2016 in numbers:

Since its launch in 2010, the Baltic M&A and Private Equity Forum has developed an excellent reputation among private equity and venture capital funds, investment bankers, lawyers, other advisers, company managers and shareholders, gathering 200+ participants each year. The Forum offers a platform for establishing new contacts, finding new business opportunities, sharing experience, and spending time with peers.

Forum will focus on the following key topics:

• Baltic economies and transaction market: bound to grow?
• Consolidation trends and practice: will the pace intensify?
• Private equity & venture capital: hunting season continues – and what about exits?
• M&A as a strategic tool: how to use it properly?
• Case studies from recent transactions in the Baltics

Confirmed speakers:

Registration: