EUNITE’S ORIGIN: CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE

Immediately after the fall of the Berlin wall, EUNITE saw the opportunity in providing local business services to foreign companies in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. To realise our goal, local presence was mandatory. Hence we established our own local offices in all CEE countries. Even in the smallest Baltic country – with less than one million inhabitants – our EUNITE flag was proudly waving.

The fall of the Berlin wall attracted foreign companies with an eye for investment opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe. Originally these markets were still somewhat immature and / or protected. As a result investments were often realised via joint ventures with local Polish, Czech, Romanian etc. companies. The majority of such investments occurred in the metal industry and consisted of brownfield investments. Quite quickly these countries started optimising their legislations and / or were maturing. In addition many countries developed granting structures to attrack foreign investors also. As a result – next to brownfields –  greenfield investments were initiated. Thanks to our local presence in these countries and the demand for our support, EUNITE has been providing its investments services for brownfields and greenfields from our early beginning.

GLOBAL INVESTMENT SERVICES

After about ten years of investment services in CEE countries, two developments occurred simultaneously. The first development was a demand for similar support in other countries. Based on their positive experience in Central and Eastern European countries, our customers turned to EUNITE for investment services in various other countries too. Secondly EUNITE started to develop its own investment projects also, both in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in African countries. What thus started as investment services in CEE countries, has naturally evolved in investment services ‘anywhere in the world’. Hence we define our investment services as ‘global investment services’ nowadays. 

BROAD & CHALLENGING SCOPE INVESTMENTS

Not only our geographical territory expanded, the characteristics of the investments has also grown over the years. In the early years, the demand consisted mainly of establishing local manufacturing sites. We realised this demand either via greenfields or brownfields. Quickly afterwards investments in the agri-food sector, infrastructure and logistics followed.

Currently such investments still are common practice. However in addition, the past 10 years we have also seen a growing demand from customers with innovation investments. Examples are the development of new products, innovative production processes up to realising completely new value chains. All together this results in a broad and challenging scope of investment projects.

CO-CREATING, FUNDING AND MANAGING INVESTMENTS

This broad scope of investment projects is also reflected in our services’ portfolio, as elaborated below.

CO-CREATING

Taken our experience with investment projects, we are often asked to help developing the first (rough) investment ideas into actual investment plans. Amongst other this includes developing business plans, realising partnerships and developing innovative business models. The latter specially applies to investment projects in which complete new value chains are created.

FUNDING

A strong correlation exists between investments and grants. Due to the geographical increase and the broader content of the investments, we have become experts in acquiring grants in the Netherlands, the European Union and in local countries.

However for each investment – next to grants – other funding resources need to be secured as well. EUNITE is also active in acquiring such additional (private) funding.

MANAGING

Finally the complexity of the investments has grown strongly over the years. Growing challenges are witnessed in the content as well as in the multi stakeholder characteristics of the investments. As a result, a demand for steering / managing these investments has arisen. Since EUNITE has played its role from the early beginning, it is hardly a surprise we are often asked to manage investments. This way our customer secures that the final realisation of the investment is in accordance with its ‘original spirit’.

Hence we summarised our global investment services in one sentence as follows: EUNITE co-creates, funds and manages investments.

UNIQUE: HIGH END, HANDS ON & ENTREPRENEURIAL

EUNITE has had a drive to be much more than a regular consultancy firm. Naturally we provide high end services, and deliver the top quality output as demanded from our customers. However from our very beginning we have been distinguishing ourselves by our hands on support ‘in the field’. In addition we deliver a tangible entrepreneurial approach in all our efforts: after successfully accomplishing various investment projects for our customers, we realised our own investment projects also.

Our combination of delivering high end services with hands on support and own investment track record, makes EUNITE rather unique. More information about our background is also available on our corporate EUNITE website.