Leaders of four Bulgarian companies, two of which public, participated in a discussion entitled Hot Investment Sectors, as part of the forum on Private Equity Financing in Bulgaria and Southeast Europe, organized by Capital daily.

“We are studying possibilities for acquisitions. At the same time we are constantly finding new export opportunities,”said Tzvetan Lajanski, Devin CEO.

“Sopharma is a well-known company that does not need to be presented,”said the company CEO Ognyan Donev (pictured above). “This is why I will be speaking from a businessesman's point of view.” He added that the most logical initiative right now is investing in production.

The next step will be to buy off everything possible in the production. A development plan should include entering the wholesale market and after that the retail market.

Ognyan Donev said the biggest challenge in our region is finding a good investment opportunity and buying a factory for up to 5 million euros. He said expanding in sectors related to that of your company is the most logical next step after some time in the business. He mentioned the sectors of hospital services and heath insurance as such for the one in which his company operates (pharmaceuticals).

Asked to comment on the potential of the IT sector in Bulgaria, Pavel Ezekiev, a partner in NEVEQ said, the clients in the sector are finding themselves in an interesting situation right now. He mentioned banks, telecommunication companies and goods manufacturers as clients of the IT sector. Another challenge in his words is that China manufactures everything and in large volumes.

The true art of the business is to be able to foresee the direction in which a sector, for example the banking one, will be restructuring and to guess things such as what software it will need, or what will be the new functions of mobile phones be, Ezekiev also said.

It is difficult to find a company with a lot of potential in the region, because the sector in which Devin operates is consolidated and there aren't many small enterprises on sale, Tzvetan Lajanski also said. But if you are closely watching the market tendencies you may find a niche for new developments.

Lajanski also said that sector will not run out of opportunities for development in the following 10 years. He said he expects to see transformations in the sector of turnover goods, distribution and logistics.

Traveling is a nice thing, as you may get a lot of ideas on the way, he joked. As an example he mentioned Romania where the mineral water bottling business has a history of 200 years and all companies are structured in the same way.

Lajanski also said the region must be viewed as one whole and not as many countries. Ognyan Donev, however, said the glottalization is not everything. He cited the pharmaceutical sector as an example. This sector is problematic in his words because the health care is a priority issue for each nation and each country is defining the parameters for its development on its own.

Veselin Danev, Sigma Capital director, said many people made a lot of money quickly in the real estate sector. The market is now more mature, he added, and companies need a good team of professionals and risk management knowledge to succeed. When a market is developing in a cyclic way, good investment opportunities emerge sooner or later, he added.

Danev pointed out that he expects very good opportunities from local players to appear in a matter of a year and a half. In his words many local companies have started too many projects and are now unable to complete them. As far as the high prices on some deals are concerned, he said, sometimes it is better to restrain from a purchase.

Asked to comment on Sopharma's aggressive policy in the region, Ognyan Donev pointed out that there aren't many companies in the region which are good enough to provoke Sopharma's interest. The problem of local entrepreneurs according to him is that they refuse to accept the fact that controlling 49% of a successful and developing company is better than having 100% in one that has no future perspectives.

People may wish to get rich in two ways said NEVEQ's Ezekiev - immediately or in the long term run. The second is safer, he said. Prices of food and medicines will be rising in the long term perspective and you may soon hear that NEVEQ is going in those direction.

As far as the problems of Bulgarian businesses are concerned Danev mentioned the lack of qualified personnel and Ognyan Donev cited the state interference in business.

Photo: BGNES