From UEFA Champions League to Deal-By-Deal PE

Nikolay Dimitrov is the founder of Unity Investment Partnership, an independent sponsor based in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Formerly a professional soccer star, with 11 caps for Bulgaria, Nikolay reveals that one of his career highlights was playing in the UEFA Champions League against the likes of Ronaldinho at Camp Nou in Barcelona.

After a long career in professional soccer - playing in countries like Turkey, Greece, and Russia - Nikolay eventually grew disillusioned by the commercialization of the sport. Luckily, just at that time, he suddenly got the opportunity to acquire a small cleaning business during COVID. He retired from professional football soon after.

Unity and Nikolay first pursued a roll-up strategy in the veterinary space in Bulgaria and Romania. Equipped with a shortlist of 150 target acquisitions, he applied the cold outreach methods that he had learned from serial acquirers in the US. However, Bulgarian business owners weren’t receptive to such aggressive campaigns and Nikolay got blacklisted by the region’s veterinarians in a dedicated Facebook group.

It took multiple years to get the first deal done, in part because his soccer fame was held against him. Fast forward to today, and Unity Investment Partnership sees more inbound leads than they know what to do with.

As a side note, Unity and Nikolay are actively looking for investors who can contribute working capital in exchange for a share of the general partnership in order to build a team that can handle all the inbound.

There are many disadvantages of establishing in a region where private equity doesn’t exist in the lower middle market: business owners aren’t familiar or comfortable with the idea of selling, the capital provider landscape is non-existent, and opportunities are few and far between. However, if you can successfully break down the door, as Unity now has accomplished, then there are copious opportunities: a near-monopoly on lower-middle market deals, massive inbound deal flow, and low valuations since alternatives don’t exist.

Listen for Nikolay's take on how to establish himself as a business buyer in an immature market, which lessons from professional soccer can be applied to deal-by-deal private equity, and best practices (including “what not to do”) for independent sponsors outside the US.