As the orange era stalls…The banking revolution grows
Horizon, through its Emerging Europe Growth Fund, teamed up with MTV Networks International and leading Ukrainian music and video producer Yevgen Stupa to launch the channel, which broadcasts a mix of international and locally produced content to about 25% of Ukraine’s households via cable and satellite.
That the likes of Pimp My Ride and South Park, two of the MTV’s leading internationally syndicated programmes should now be available to an eager audience of Ukrainians, thanks to a private equity firm might seem surprising at first glance. However, with its 47 million-strong population, the country is increasingly on the radar screens of global media companies and media sector investors.
At the end of December, for example, another leading private equity player in Ukraine, SigmaBleyzer, scored a notable coup when it persuaded Providence Equity Partners, the world’s leading media and communications private equity firm, to invest over $200 million in Volia Cable, the leading Ukrainian cable TV and internet access provider in the country. Not only did the transaction mark the largest western private equity investment in Ukraine to date, it also highlighted the fact that global players from the alternative investment world are increasingly targeting the market.
Providence manages more than $21 billion-worth of funds worldwide and has invested in more than 100 companies in the media and entertainment sector. “It is our belief that attracting the highest-quality global investors like Providence will have a positive effect on the Ukrainian economy and investment climate and will further promote Ukraine as an important investment destination,” says Michael Bleyzer, president of SigmaBleyzer, which was founded in 1994 and has gone on to attract more than $1 billion in commitments and invest in more than 80 companies in Ukraine.
But it’s not just the new media sector that is attracting growing interest from international players. Another Kiev private equity firm, Euroventures Ukraine, last March brokered a landmark deal whereby France’s Auchan Group, the world’s 10th-largest retailer, entered the Ukraine retail market in partnership with one of its investee companies, Furshet. As well as taking a 20% stake in Furshet, Auchan founded two joint ventures to develop a range of Auchan stores and a series of shopping malls, which will contain either an Auchan store or a Furshet supermarket. Having made an initial $2.5 million investment in Furshet through its EVU I fund in 2002, Euroventures has helped oversee Furshet’s rapid expansion, which has resulted in the firm becoming the country’s second-largest retailer, with annual revenues in excess of $500 million.
