As a specialized investment firm, our mission is to responsibly allocate resources in meaningful businesses. A provider of long-term capital, we integrate the perspective of durability along our investment process. We invest in tangible businesses offering solutions to real world problems.

Our values

Respect is a major component of our group’s human dimension. It helps build long-lasting relationships with our clients, suppliers, partners and shareholders.

Entrepreneurship is in our DNA. It determines the decentralized way we work, the spirit of the men and women that work here and our culture of development.

Performance is key to our development and goes hand in hand with ambitious targets that secure growth, develop pride of managers and satisfaction with all stakeholders

Alcopa’s way of collaborating with its portfolio companies revolves around four key principles. To live by those principles, Alcopa and the invested companies agree on a set of mutual commitments.

01

We respect our companies' autonomy

What companies can expect from us:

  • Trust

    We believe in subsidiarity and think that decisions should be taken at the most immediate level possible. We appoint strong management teams, which we believe are ideally positioned to make good decisions

  • Straightforward interactions

    We keep a healthy balance between our stewardship duties and the implied requirements that fall on the company’s shoulders. We appoint designated persons within our teams to handle and supervise communications and requests.

What we expect from them:

  • Transparency

    As a reference shareholder, we consider it our duty to ensure proper supervision. We expect relevant and reliable information as requested.

  • Governance

    We take pride in maintaining strong governance structures in all our companies. Full-fledged boards of directors are appointed and convene regularly in physical meetings to discuss strategy and operations. In between those formal meetings, touchpoints are regularly organized to keep track of business evolutions and quickly bounce ideas.

02

We act as a sparring partner

What companies can expect from us:

  • Commitment

    We make it a point to develop an in-depth understanding of each business, its challenges and its sources of success. We invest in niche industries and conduct the strategic due diligences during acquisition by ourselves, and we deliberately do not have separate investment and portfolio management teams. This allows us to act as a relevant sparring partner to the management teams.

  • Support

    While companies in the group are active in widely different industries, they often face similar challenges, either due to their size, the geographies they operate in on the macro-economic conditions they face. We leverage our experience across the portfolio by supporting our companies on projects such as durability, acquisitions, finance, organization or governance.

What we expect from them:

  • Openness

    We might not always be aligned on the direction to take or the opportunities to seize, but we will always strive for open and constructive debate. Our managers’ openness to debate and to compromise allows for fruitful discussions to make the right choices.

  • Proactivity

    We count on our managers to be a source of innovation, to infuse an entrepreneurial spirit in the companies they lead, and to use us to test and iterate ideas.

03

We provide long-term capital

What companies can expect from us:

  • No exit pressure

    When we invest, we do not have a predefined investment horizon. We respect the organization’s ability to evolve, without forcing changes because we near the term of our investment period.

  • Resources

    The organic and external growth of our companies always have the priority in the allocation of our resources.

What we expect from them:

  • Ambition

    We expect the leadership to have a grounded view on their long term goals and their strategy to achieve them, and not merely a view on short-term tactical choices.

  • Durability

    With raising expectations from all stakeholders, and because it simply is the right thing to do, we expect our companies to actively work on reducing their environmental footprint and on creating value beyond financial performance.

04

We share the value created

What companies can expect from us:

  • Incentives

    We align interests of all parties to share the value created. Thanks to our conservative leverage approach and long term view, we continuously optimize the capital structure, and welcome managers as co-shareholders whenever possible.

  • Liquidity

    Unlike traditional investment firms, we are in it for the long run. This means we are ready to provide liquidity on shares owned by managers and co-investors, should the need arise.

What we expect from them:

  • Co-investment

    In the vast majority of our companies, managers are co-shareholders, because it is the best way to align interests. In some of our investments, we have implemented wider employee shareholding structures. We shy away from complex management packages and favour straightforward investment schemes where everybody is on the same foot.

  • Liquidity

    Managers are co-shareholders because they play an active role in the company, and we require to be able to buy over their shares based on a pre-agreed valuation methodology if they quit their role.