Disclaimer: Unless noted otherwise, views and analysis expressed here are the author's own and based on public sources. The article is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional for investment decisions.

*********************

When we were kids in the 1990s Baltics, Poland was the mythical place you “drove through without stopping” (to bring a used car from Germany). By the time we graduated from university, in the mid-2000s, Poland had become Europe’s Mexico: a prolific importer of capital and exporter of labour. And in 2026? Having recently pulled a GDP sorpasso on Spain (on a per capita PPP basis), Poland, or at least Warsaw, does not feel “emerging” at all. Nor does it feel particularly “Western”: too clean, too safe, too dynamic.

And yet in one respect Poland punches well below its weight: Private Equity dealmaking. According to Invest Europe, in 2023-25 Polish buyout activity added up to €1.5B, less than 1% of Europe’s total.

Is this a malaise or an opportunity? To find the answer, we teamed up with First Point Partners to organise an invite-only Serial Acquirer Summit: our first in the country. On 15 October, alongside 50-odd Polish investment professionals we hosted international GPs and LPs including Builders Associés, Lead Edge, Macquarie, Opera Investment Partners, Moore Heritage, Bright Capital, Aspira Partners and Clearsight. 

How’s that for a line-up?  

Builders, Opera, and Sterling (the data room provider) sponsored the event, along with Warsaw Equity Group, a hybrid family office/growth equity investor. Thanks guys - we hope the ROI was good!  

What follows is a summary of the Summit’s three panels, plus a “composite narrative” constructed from all the conversations we squeezed into a 48-hour window: 

Important caveat before we dive in: the transcripts have been significantly shortened and edited to keep this article to a manageable length.

Sorry, one more thing 🙋‍♂️<2 weeks to secure Early Bird tickets to the Redeye Serial Acquirer Conference in Stockholm: 17-18 March 2027. This is THE conference for compounders and Long Term Hold enthusiasts. A place where you can randomly run into people like Ramsey Sayoun from Evergreen Services Group or Eiichi Arai from NGTG, the “Danaher of Japan” whom we interviewed on the spot.   

Anyway, it’s time you secured your seat! Unsure if it’s worth your time? Check out the video highlights from this year’s conference. 

***

Before we dive into the Summit transcript, some context. First Point Partners is Central and Eastern Europe’s go-to Private Equity executive search firm. First Point’s Managing Partner Anna Bebel (pictured below, left, next to Alex and Helen from RollUpEurope) has been in the game for over a decade, during which she built up an enviable Rolodex.   

From conversations with Anna and the Summit’s attendees, 80% of whom hailed from Private Equity, we could sense a palpable frustration with the status quo, caused by three factors. 

One, complaints about longtime partners at local funds “hogging carry” and blocking career path (hey, we’ve heard this one before!).

Two, with IT services on the back foot, the Polish PE community is in thrall to a healthcare investing mania. The obsession with fertility clinics, outpatient clinics and rehabs is understandable given the aging population, rising healthcare spending etc. - but it’s crowding out other initiatives.

Three, international mid- and large-cap firms have struggled to crack Poland, for reasons such as: 

The root cause of these problems? For all of the vertigo-inducing macro pronouncements, Poland’s “PE TAM” is smaller than you’d expect. According to Eurostat and Statistics Poland, the country has 4,000 businesses with 250+ employees, versus 5,000 in Spain and 15,000 in Germany. Within this subset however, majority foreign-owned businesses represent 42% of the count and 48% of the revenues. Factoring in state-owned businesses, the figures rise to 51% and 61%, respectively.

Geopolitics or not, you get why megacap funds are lukewarm!

Having said that, if you're not chasing Żabka-style deals (the ubiquitous convenience retailer which CVC recently offloaded to Couche-Tard at an $11B EV), we have good news for you. The number of Polish privately owned businesses with 10-249 employees is 46,000. The average turnover is PLN 50M (€11M / $13M) - and growing. And yet, outside of “hot” industries like healthcare the competition for these SMEs ranges from non-existent to limited.

Could Poland be Europe’s rollup Eldorado? You decide - aided by our insights from the Summit.

Anna Bebel moderated a panel with three speakers:

One, Luke Parsons. After a decade at Summit Partners in healthcare, Luke joined Moore Heritage to build out a private markets franchise, investing across the entire emerging manager stack: independent sponsors, search funds, HoldCos and funds.

Two, James Roebuck, who co-founded Opera Investment Partners, a leading investor in independent sponsors, after a stint at Clearsight, another LP that pioneered investing in emerging GPs in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. See our recent interview with Opera. 

Three, Waldemar Pilch, an Independent Sponsor himself. Waldemar returned to Poland in 2016 after 18 years in New York, mostly in investment banking. He took over a family business, scaled it, and eventually exited to a PE-backed buyer. Because this wasn't enough, Waldemar decided to go again, as a self-funded searcher. In late 2022, he acquired formeds, a Polish clean-label supplements brand. 2.5 years later, a leading Polish Private Equity firm Enterprise Investors invested in formeds, thus crystallising a 4x MOIC for Waldemar’s investor Novastone.    

Anna Bebel (AB): Let's start by clearing up the confusion. James, Luke, what is the difference between a search fund and an independent sponsor - and do you invest in both?

James Roebuck (JR): For us, an independent sponsor brings a concrete deal: a well-defined target, at a specific valuation, with a specific value creation plan. The sponsor stewards the business and the plan, but from board level. In a search fund, you back the idea of buying a business by funding the search, which may or may not lead to a transaction. What we like about the independent sponsor model is that we see exactly what's being acquired and can make a judgement call. A search fund has a blind element: you don't know what the target or the valuation will be.

The other difference is that independent sponsors can hold several deals. We've backed some sponsors repeatedly over the years, a few for as long as 15 years. In the search model, the searcher becomes the management and leads value creation and operations themselves.

Luke Parsons (LP): My view has changed over time, partly because of mistakes I've made in this market. Coming from direct investing, I was drawn to what I knew: underwriting an end market or an asset. But whatever you call it, search or independent sponsor, these are gradients of the same thing. As capital providers we're putting someone in between us and the asset, and at the start I underestimated how much the quality of that intermediary matters.

A lot of people in this market say they'll back a great sponsor even on a mediocre deal. I don't think we have to choose. There are so many great opportunities that we should look for great sponsors and great deals. But if you do one deal in this space, get the sponsor underwriting right. I look for track record, skin in the game, and motivation. 

AB: Waldemar, your journey doesn't fit neatly into either category. You chose to do it self-funded, and you subsequently ran the business. Why?