Is Fast Food Becoming a Healthy Sector for Investors?

Over the last few years, a swathe of new fast food brands have popped up. These new brands aim to cater to changing attitudes towards healthy eating and dietary choices. The traditional players in the fast food space, those widely perceived to offer ‘unhealthy’ meals, are beginning to alter their menus, too. Healthy choices seem […]

Easy to be eco-friendly – why should investors care?

Last week, onefourzero published an article on growing demand and investment in the home automation sector. One area of home automation that consumers favoured were products that helped them save energy as well as money, such as smart meters. Today’s consumer is more environmentally conscious than ever before. Searches on Google for the term “eco-friendly” […]

Land of opportunity: Central and Eastern Europe Private Equity Trends

central eastern europe Bratislava panorama - Slovakia - Eastern Europe city

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has rapidly risen since the fall of communism, as denoted by the chart below. CEE GDP per capita Even more interesting is that at 3.16%, the growth rate of CEE GDP per capita is nearly double that of the EU. This is a market that has […]

IM to be believed? Testing the numbers with Digital Due Diligence

When a private company is being sold via an auction process, an Information Memorandum (IM) – otherwise known as the ‘book’ – serves to encourage offers by providing prospective buyers with key information. IMs are also used when a company is seeking to raise finance and encourage investment. Buyers rely on IMs to give an […]

Cyber Security: Turning Rhetoric into Action

The recent NHS cyber-attack, that infected over 300,000 computers worldwide, caused a huge spike in Google searches of the term ‘cyber security’ as seen below. Described as the “biggest ransomware attack in history”, the ‘WannaCry’ software debilitated 48 NHS trusts for 24 hours and caused further disruption for at least a week. Cyber security is […]

Looking back on investment year 2016-17: How Private Equity Fell in Love with Digital

The continued fall out of the financial crisis combined with a year of political uncertainty and limited GDP growth have altered the characteristics of M&A activity. With limited market growth fund managers are holding on to assets for longer and (possibly not through choice) are taking the time to improve their assets. Therefore, the last […]

Cyber Security – what is it and are you asking the right questions?

What is Cyber Due Diligence? It is the testing of digital processes and systems to assess the potential for a data breach of any stored personal data.  This includes 3 main areas: risk management (PROCESS) compliance management / policy arrangements (PEOPLE) technical security (TECH) What are Cyber Threats? Cyber threats come from hackers and bots […]

Brexit economic uncertainty or seasonality? Why the restaurant sector is seeing a decline

Brexit: Economic Uncertainty or Seasonality

Why is the restaurant sector seeing a decline? Economic uncertainty following Brexit and Trump has reduced the disposable incomes of many, increasing the preference of “dining in” as opposed to “dining out”. Restaurants: like-for-like sales -0.6% Pubs: like-for-like sales -1.2% YOY sales: -1.0% Intent to go out: -2.93% Political impact on decision to go out: […]

US election response matters

Statue of Liberty: investment opportunities in the wake of Trump

Many investors and fund managers had hoped that the surprise Brexit result was a one off.  It couldn’t possibly happen again, could it?  The underdog pulling on the emotive strings of the populist vote above reason, logic and to some extent humanity.  And that’s before we get to the details of international trade relations, internal […]