We support growing companies which recognise that “what got them here, won’t always get them there”.
We observe that founder-led and family-owned businesses, however successful, often hit a ceiling at some point in their development.
At this stage, the incumbent strategy, organisation, processes and often also culture simply don’t enable the next chapter anymore.
We have encountered these situations numerous times and understand what it takes to break through.
We recognise that success rarely comes in the form of a silver bullet in just one of these areas. It is often a matter of hard yards and patience in most or all of them.
Successful partnerships are key to what we do. We aim to be a valued partner to the management teams we work with, allowing them to realise the full potential of the businesses they are running. Our commitment in this respect is as follows:
ESG
Our business is to invest in successful companies and partner with strong management teams to make them even better.
As a socially responsible investor, we integrate environmental, social and governance considerations into all our investment processes. We are convinced that ESG can be a driver of strategy and managing it properly will enhance our return on risk.
All of our portfolio companies regularly review their ESG priorities, status and plans. We dedicate significant effort to monitoring progress and driving positive change across our portfolio companies.
Furthermore, we practice what we preach. Although our direct footprint as an investment firm is relatively limited, we measure and mitigate our impact. We try to limit the energy use in our offices and substitute flights by video conferences whenever we can. We also purchase carbon offsets to the extent that we are not able to reduce our carbon footprint through other means and have set ourselves the target to be carbon neutral for our own operations and all our portfolio companies by the end of 2021.
We are a signatory of PRI – Principles for Responsible Investment.
Charitable giving
We believe that we should contribute to the communities in which we live and work. To this end, we have established a charitable giving programme to support local charities in and around the areas where we are active.
In setting up this charitable programme, our main objectives are:
Our hope is that our charitable programme can help create a meaningful and enduring legacy for targeted causes.
We are currently actively supporting the following charities through both our time commitment and capital:
Horizon Foundation
East Side Young Leaders Academy
Maxem Trust