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SEE TOP 100 Insurers
Interview: Investment Network Merar Connects
Underfunded Asia Pacific, CEE and Africa SMEs with
Financial Backers
Merar (www.merar.com) provides a global web-based platform in English, Russian, Turkish and Chinese where business managers and
owners promote their companies in need of growth capital or exit to interested investors and investment intermediaries.
Ralitsa Bobochikova,
Managing Director, Merar
Q: What was the business rationale behind the
launch of the platform? Why the focus on emerging
markets?
A: Emerging markets are where business
opportunities are greatest and that is
no news. We believe that the strongest
prospect for sustainable growth in emerging
markets is private entrepreneurship and
private business. Unlike on developed
markets, however, there is less awareness
of financing and capital opportunities.
Similarly, for investors looking to engage
capital effectively, there are fewer established
channels to identify potential targets.
Here is a simple example. Every business
needs money to grow, survive a rough patch
or just spread out the risk. Very often, and
especially with the ongoing financial crisis,
businesses struggle to get bank credits.
On the other side, we have the world of
angel investors, venture capitalists, private
equity and mezzanine funds and a lot of
companies looking for good merger and
acquisition opportunities to expand. Most
of them, led by potentially high internal
rates of return, are looking for investment
opportunities in the markets of Asia Pacific,
Central and Eastern Europe and Africa.
They read analysis and reports about new
and emerging opportunities and promising
returns but do not always have the tools to
identify interesting and broad enough targets
and build up their investment portfolio.
Here is where Merar strives to help. Our
goal is to help businesses and investors meet,
establish contact and start negotiations.
To facilitate the contact we operate in 4
languages (Russian, Turkish, Chinese and
English) and all projects descriptions and
investors’ CVs are translated into English.
Q: What investment opportunities are currently
available on the markets covered by the platform?
What are the main industries which Merar’s
platform is currently attracting? What geographic
areas are investors flocking to?
A: Currently we have listings for investment
opportunities from 21 countries across 26
industries with a combined value of almost
$2 billion.
Opportunities in India, China and Russia
have a significant share of the listings on the
platform. This shows the pent-up demand
for investment in those countries and the
inevitable growth of private business and
entrepreneurs in all industry sectors.
Q: What are the key factors that would make
a business in the regions covered by the platform
attractive to investors? What role does innovation
play in this process?
A: Each emerging economy has its particular
advantages, whether it is the focused support
and entrepreneurial energy of investment
and technology centers such as India’s
Bangalore or the overall macro-economic
growth outlook in places like Vietnam.
For Eastern Europe, which is the focus of this
publication, it seems clear that we will see
a large number of well-managed privatelyheld
businesses coming to the market over
the next decade as the original founders,
who set up the operation following the fall
of communism, go into retirement. This
will provide the fuel for increased private
investment throughout Eastern Europe and
the more efficient use of capital. We would
then expect those companies to develop
under new ownership both eastwards into
Russia and Asia, as well as to compete
head-to-head with western European firms.
Q: What are the challenges facing technology/
innovation-based businesses in developing markets?
A: As with other businesses, perhaps the
two main challenges are human resources
and financing.
Innovation companies need to attract
highly intelligent and technically skilled
individuals with financial and business savvy
and all emerging economies potentially
suffer from talented personnel moving to
the U.S. and Western European universities
and companies.
Secondly, corporate failure can have
heavy legal and personal implications in
many emerging countries, which restricts
entrepreneurship and helps maintain the
status-quo of established entities.
Last but not least, the business environment
for innovation and high-tech companies
in more developed countries can be more
forgiving. In the U.S., for example, there are
well-established mechanisms for companies
to make their pitch and attract debt financing
and venture capital and this is the process
that Merar hopes to facilitate in emerging
markets.
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