EI celebrates Sfinks IPO

Polish Enterprise Fund IV, managed by Enterprise Investors (EI), has fully exited its 32% stake in Sfinks, a Polish restaurant chain, in an IPO on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE.) The sale yielded a 6.8x investment multiple and gross proceeds of $25.5m. The heavily oversubscribed offering attracted the interest of both retail and institutional investors at the top of the pricing range raising an additional $4.6m (PLN14m) in new capital for business expansion.

EI invested $3.75m in Sfinks via a capital increase in 2002 to fund the rollout of the restaurants in Poland’s largest cities. Sfinks has 79 units comprised of regular dine-in restaurants, food courts and seasonal restaurants. In 2006, the company acquired Chlopskie Jadlo, a chain of seven premium restaurants with a well-recognized brand and further rollout opportunities. The company has managed to increase its net earnings 8.5 times in the last three years.

Jacek Wozniak, partner at Enterprise Investors said: “Sfinks’s IPO was a great success. With its leading position in both the casual dining and premium restaurant market segments in Poland and further expansion opportunities, the company represents an interesting asset for both institutional and retail investors in Poland, as proved during the IPO”, said Jacek Wozniak, partner at Enterprise Investors.