NATO

"The two entrepreneurs, Peter Terziev and Georg Tzvetansky, had a pharmaceutical distribution business in Bulgaria, which had been the main pharmaceutical hub for the Eastern bloc in Soviet days. They had markets in eastern Europe, especially Russia, and had put bids in for the privatisation of three of the four state-owned pharmaceutical companies in Bulgaria, advised by Deutsche Bank. While they were raising the funds, the NATO bombing of Serbia began. Every night, the news was full of ‘war in the Balkans’ headlines and these guys were raising money for a company they named Balkanpharma, so they were being rejected by a lot of investment committees at Western institutional investors. I was asked to come and take a look at it to…"

"I thrived on coping with the esoteric, the dangerous and the exotic in pursuit of a deal. From pharmaceuticals investments in Bulgaria at the time NATO was bombing Serbia to dismantling a top-heavy former nationalised telecoms giant in the Czech Republic, I discovered that a little capital and a lot of debt could multiply my initial wealth many times over. It peaked when I bought a Bulgarian telecoms group, BTC. My leverage on that deal was 95 per cent, meaning I only had to put up 5 per cent of the funds myself. I was hooked."