Concept

At present times a substantial number of French enterprises of small and medium size in different industrial sectors are up for sale or are passively looking for a buyer, including in particular because of the retirement of the founders.  This process has been accelerated by the financial crisis.

Many enterprises have a high technology and very efficient production capacity, which reached full maturity on the markets of the Western Europe.

Western companies of small and mid size have no or limited resources to easily access Russian business partners.  This market segment does not attract interest from big investment banks, structured for transactions above 250 million USD.

On the other hand, Russian entrepreneurs of small and mid size businesses do not have structured access to information and deals in Western Europe.  It is obvious, though, that there is are numerous companies in technology industries, such as pharmacy, medical devices, specialized industrial equipment, IT, which could be of interest for the Russian business for the purposes of acquiring mature technologies, capable of being developed in Russia, highly efficient production capacities and qualified and efficient work force.

Russian industry could, through acquisition of mid size technology companies in Western Europe, gain immediate access to technologies and production capacities and therefore gain 10 to 15 years of investment. The goal is not to relocate the production to Russia, but to allow Russians to open or upgrade production capacities in Russia on the basis of the interesting and mature Western technologies. For the Western companies the acquisition by Russians could mean access to new markets.

Big Business in Russia as well as in Western Europe has all necessary internal and external resources to find targets and conduct strategic planning.  Small and mid size businesses frequently step out of transactions in Western Europe because of the lack of information about companies for sale, existing "bad ideas" about Western markets, including in terms of taxation, labour law, excessive transaction costs.

Professional associations and sovereign investment funds from other countries understand the interest of buying high technology Western companies.

The Association « Dialogue Franco Russe », created by big players of both countries (currently co-chaired by Mr Desmarest from Total and Mr Yakounin from RJD), considers creating a platform to exchange information about existing projects in the segment of small and mid size high technology business with a view to promote investment of Russian enterpreneurs in France.

The Association believes that without interested private initiative this project cannot be successful.  The directly interested players in this segment are investment boutiques, working with clients of small and mid size business, as well as strategy consultants, lawyers and auditors, working with clients and having information about their clients’ plans to sell or to expand the business.  The Association’s task would be to identify such players in France and Russia and attract them to the project.

The platform would take the form of a window on the Association's website.  The window would provide basic information about the existing projects (industry segment and main products, last year revenue and income, contact information).  The information will be confidential and will direct the interested players from the other side to the contact person (most frequently an intermediary like a banker or strategy consultant).  It is key to create a climate of confidence between the players to ensure the movement of the information and contacts as the most important part is the set up of the cultural bridge between the players from both countries.  Both downloading of information and access to it will be free of any charge.

This window may and shall be linked to other appropriate websites to be advertised of to the largest possible extent.

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