Welcome to the website
of PLCF Piotr Łagowski

a provider of strategic financial and transaction advisory services in Poland and for international markets.

Many shareholders of large private and listed companies already trust us. If you have to manage a difficult and challenging business project, and are seeking an experienced advisor combining guaranteed professionalism, an out-of-the-box approach and confidentiality, you have come to the right place.

See the different sections of our website to discover how we can help you meet your challenges.

Welcome to the website of PLCF Piotr Łagowski

a provider of strategic financial and transaction advisory services in Poland and for international markets.

Many shareholders of large private and listed companies already trust us. If you have to manage a difficult and challenging business project, and are seeking an experienced advisor combining guaranteed professionalism, an out-of-the-box approach and confidentiality, you have come to the right place.

See the different sections of our website to discover how we can help you meet your challenges.

Our Services

Mergers & Acquisitions

These are typically transaction-related services. We provide comprehensive advice to domestic and foreign investors who need to dynamise the development of their companies by taking over other entities.

For the seller, we identify potential investors, prepare the offer documents and negotiate investment exit terms that are optimum from the financial, tax-related and legal perspectives. We also offer consultation services on mergers, where the key task is to convince the partners to a specific asset exchange parity and to choose an appropriate transaction structure. We also support the client in obtaining funding for their transactions. Find out more about Mergers & Acquisitions.

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Strategic Financial Advice

a group of advisory services of diverse and individual natures, their common feature being the recommendation on how to optimise company value from the perspective of its owners..

After the initial period of dynamic progress, a company often has a number of mutually exclusive strategic development paths from which to choose. Our task is to analyse comprehensively all the strategic options (including the financial, tax and legal aspects), and create potential solutions for the client that will optimise the value of their assets at a risk level they find acceptable. Find out more about Strategic Financial Advice.

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Restructuring

this is addressed primarily to companies in a difficult financial position. Together with the client, we prepare restructuring plans to present to creditors. We seek alternative funding solutions that are adapted to the possibilities available to the companies under restructuring. Find out more about restructuring.

Arrangement of Funding

we provide comprehensive assessments and reviews of various types of investment undertakings, and we prepare the data and materials required to obtain funding.We assist the client with advice on negotiating loan agreements with banks and seeking funding from private equity funds. Find out more about Arrangement of Funding.

Corporate Governance

We support groups of companies in exercising supervision over their subsidiaries by serving on Supervisory Boards and Audit Committees.

We develop effective reporting systems for capital groups. Find out more about Corporate Governance.

Do you need another service?

Contact us, because we are expert at resolving all kinds of corporate finance problems.

Our Team

The PLCF Team comprises two experienced financial and transaction advisors - Piotr Łagowski and Ewa Torosian (see our résumés below) and our network of partners in Poland and abroad – legal advisors, tax advisors, auditors and capital market specialists. In this way we can assemble advisory teams that are dedicated to the specific needs of each client. Such a business model gives us the flexibility and the capacity to handle large projects, whether in Poland or elsewhere.

  • Over a dozen completed enterprise purchase/sale transactions;
  • Strategic advisory services for leading Polish private companies;
  • Over 20 years of advisory and business experience;
  • International projects implemented in a number of European countries;
  • Thousands of cups of coffee drunk during discussions with our clients.
Piotr Łagowski PLCF

Piotr Łagowski

Founder and Managing Director of PLCF.

Piotr Łagowski is a graduate of the University of Warsaw (UW) Management School, with over 25 years of business experience. His main strengths include versatile expertise, common sense and excellent client relations.

At the beginning of his professional career, he worked for consulting firms and companies managing investment funds created by international financial institutions (Bank ING, Bank Creditanstalt).

Over the next few years, he served on the management boards of leading Polish industrial groups, such as: ZPW Prospan and ZPW Grajewo (currently: Pfleiderer Grajewo SA), the Boryszew Group, and Impexmetal S.A. He worked on a number of restructuring and integration projects for these companies, thus gaining broad experience in the day-to-day operational management of complex industrial groups.

Afterwards he continued his career with a leading Polish financial consultancy company, Pekao Access, where he managed a number of merger & acquisition and financial restructuring projects, and sought funding for Polish and foreign investors pursuing projects in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states.

Since 2009 he has been running his own business, PLCF, a provider of professional corporate finance services. He also serves on the supervisory boards and audit committees of large Polish listed and private companies.

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Ewa Torosian

Ewa Torosian

Ewa Torosian is a graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics (SHG). She studied management at the Bocconi University in Milan within the CEMS programme. She has over 15 years of corporate finance experience, gained through involvement in both large international transactions and smaller-scale projects.

At the beginning of her career, she worked for a consultancy company, Peako Access, handling a number of mergers and acquisitions, managing privatisation projects and obtaining funding for leading Polish enterprises.

Over the next few years, as a Merger & Acquisition expert at Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. (Orange Polska), she implemented a number of M&A projects for a total transaction value of PLN 1.8 billion.

Throughout her professional life, she has been involved in transactions in the power, chemical, TMT (Technology, Media & Telecommunications), food and healthcare industries.

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Our Clients

Here are presented our selected clients and their references

strategic and transaction-related advice for one of Europe’s leading companies from the segment of wood-based boards for a project involving investments in CIS countries (Russia, Ukraine, Baltic states).

advisory services for a project that involved developing a growth strategy for the Impexmetal Group, operating in the segment of non-ferrous metals, as well as assistance in the development of restructuring programmes for selected Group companies.

strategic and transaction-related advice for a leading domestic manufacturer of fertilisers and titanium white in the process of the company being privatised and going public.

transaction advisory services for the management buyout of a leading Polish textile manufacturer.

several years of transaction and strategic advisory services for Poland's leading manufacturer of confectionery and beverages, in the acquisition of other entities in Poland and abroad.

financial advice for PBH S.A. in a project that involved defining a development strategy for a leading Polish clothing chain – Quiosque.

several years of strategic and financial advice for the leader of the Polish rice, groats and bakery products market.

advisory services in a project that involved defining the international development strategy for a group of companies for a Polish manufacturer of industrial furnaces.

transaction and financial advice for the Polish manufacturer of fire-resistant materials in the restructuring of the group of companies.

financial advice for a Polish distributor of food products.

advice for an investment fund in the sale of shares of FPA Group – a leading Polish company from the HR, payroll and accounting outsourcing service segments.

strategic financial advice provided to a leader of the Polish translation and conference service market.

References

see what our clients say about us

References

Case Studies

Here are just some of our projects

Investment of Pfleiderer AG in Russia

At the beginning of this century the German concern, Pfleiderer AG, was one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of wood-based boards. It made a significant investment in Poland, acquiring facilities in Grajewo and Wieruszów, soon followed by a decision to make another large investment, this time in another Eastern European country (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus or the Baltic states). PLCF Piotr Łagowski was chosen as the strategic advisor for Pfleiderer AG for the project, due to his knowledge of the sector and his expertise regarding projects in this region of Europe.

We first gathered all the available information about the condition of the sector of wood-based boards and its market environment (suppliers, recipients, macroeconomic environment) in particular countries, and prepared a list of the existing manufacturers. We thus created a preliminary long list of potential investment targets. Afterwards, we visited the majority of these companies to examine the technical, market and legal issues, and analysed the strategy of the current owners. This resulted in a short list of potential acquisition candidates.

The next step was to negotiate with the owners of the companies from the short list and to establish, for each of them, the opportunities for utilising any synergy and accomplishing the strategic objectives of the Pfleiderer concern if the acquisition were to take place. Since the answer was negative, the concept of market entry through the acquisition of an existing manufacturer was dropped, and subsequent works focused on choosing the optimum location for a greenfield project. This involved many visits and meetings with regional authorities, potential suppliers, recipients and cooperators. The knowledge gained in the process helped us choose a site that ensured the success of the whole undertaking. The investment location was in Novgorod, and was implemented by the Polish part of the concern. It is still the largest investment completed by the Polish company in Russia (worth several hundred million zloty). .

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Acquisition of an Irish manufacturer of premium confectionery, Lily O’Brien’s, by Colian Holding SA

Lily O’Brien’s is an Irish manufacturer of premium chocolate products and desserts. A leading global investment fund, Carlyle Group, invested in the company, allowing it to expand the scale of its operations. A few years later, in 2017, the Fund decided to exit the investment. This caught the interest of the Polish company, Colian Holding S.A., whose strategy involved the acquisition of brand-name confectionery manufacturers in selected markets. PLCF Piotr Łagowski, a regular transaction advisor for Colian Holding S.A., was responsible for this transaction.

Our task was to manage a project team consisting of Colian experts as well as Irish legal and financial advisors. The mission of the team was to carry out a comprehensive due diligence of the target company, define the synergies, plan the integration and prepare the financial forecasts and appraisals. We were also responsible for the entire negotiation process.

The greatest challenge of the project was the need to build appropriate communications between the buyer, a Polish company, the seller, a global giant in the investment fund sector, the local Irish partners and the management board of the acquiree. This was successfully achieved, and at the end of 2017 a transaction worth EUR 40 million (for shares plus the debt) was finalised. This is the largest investment by a Polish company in Ireland.

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Sale of FPA – a company from the HR, payroll and accounting outsourcing services sectors

The project concerned a relatively small company (revenue below 10 million zloty) but demonstrates well that professional transaction advice services can be useful even in the sale of entities of that size.

FPA Group (a Warsaw company from the HR, payroll and accounting outsourcing service sectors) was owned by an investment fund, Nitecki Acquisition. The fund decided to exit the investment and hired PLCF Piotr Łagowski to handle the transaction.

Within the project, we carried out preliminary analysis, prepared a full offer documentation, identified the potential investors and gathered their initial offers. Since we received several offers, with some meeting the expectations of the Seller, the project entered phase two. During that phase, we negotiated with selected investors and allowed them to carry out due diligence. Ultimately, the best final offer came from Grant Thorton, who became the new owner of FPA Group, giving the company a chance at further development within a larger organisation.

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Articles and News

Why don't Polish businesses go bankrupt despite the pandemic?

The last year was disastrous for business in Poland. The epidemic of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns have ruined the foundations for the operation of many industries and businesses. It would appear that in its wake, the economy will experience many bankruptcies, but at the moment the numbers don’t look...

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Five things you should know before you buy a company in Poland

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Transactional or strategic advisor?

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Interview at TVN CNBC

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How much is my company worth?

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