You only have a minute? Here are 3 key takeaways from this article:
• Growth Fund INVENIO Partners and Accession Capital Partners (ACP) have acquired the professional education division of LINK Group, a professional education company in Southern Europe.
• LINK’s professional division is present in the B2C segment in several countries, including Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine.
• INVENIO and ACP plan to collaborate with LINK’s management team to expand the company’s geographic presence.
With over 20 years of experience, LINK’s vocational education division has a strong track record, training over 6,000 students every year through its various academies such as IT, Internet academy and business streams. LINK offers free classes to the public and also seeks to connect unemployed workers with potential employers through in-person events.
The company’s headquarters are in Serbia, including Belgrade and Novi Sad. Romanian institutions include the LINK Academy and the Business Academy, with two schools in Bucharest and Timișoara, while the center of Bosnian business activity is in Sarajevo. Ukrainian and Moldovan offices are present in kyiv and Chisinau.
Through the deal, INVENIO and ACP will jointly acquire 100% of LINK’s vocational education business, as they also own a formal education business that includes two high schools, Tihomir Dyankov, CIO and partner at INVENIO Partners, told The Recursive .
With this acquisition, the company’s product offering will be further expanded to meet the growing need for upskilling of young professionals while introducing new programs to meet the demands of the B2B segment.
For INVENIO, this acquisition adds to its core strategy of discovering new players that can further expand their geographic footprint in the SEE region, both through organic expansion and complementary acquisitions. Last year, INVENIO launched a €55 million regional private equity and growth capital fund, Invenio Partners Fund II, with a mandate to invest in SMEs in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia.
“Our goal when it comes to investing in an educational institution such as LINK is to enter new markets organically, while seeking additional new acquisition opportunities that will allow the company to expand its current product offering to the B2B segment of the market,” Dyankov tells The Recursive.
For ACP, formerly known as Mezzanine Management, this investment aims to establish LINK as one of the leading vocational education providers in South Eastern Europe.
“We believe this investment and our partnership with INVENIO will help LINK become the leading IT and business professional training provider in South East Europe and we look forward to working together on this journey,” said Marko Mitrovic, Head of the Western Balkans at ACP. A declaration.
For INVENIO, investing in companies with societal impact remains a priority, as previously indicated in its strategy.
“Societal impact continues to be a minor motive for our operations. We have interpreted our mandate of the JEREMIE program as not only investing to make money, but seeking to contribute to the improvement of the business climate in the country,” Elvin Guri, Managing Partner of INVENIO. said in a previous interview with The Recursive.