borislav stefanov

• The company started as a second-hand clothing retailer in Bulgaria and was among the first to move all of its business online (about 15,000 new items daily and a turnover of EUR 30-40m in the last several years)

• I was invited to analyze а sales database with over 10m records and identify trends which could help the firm to improve discount policies and marketing

• As a part of this project, we ran a survey with over 18k respondents (current and past company clients) to understand better their demography and thus link sales trends to specific customer segments

• Besides working closely with management and company owners (4 founders), I also interacted with the biggest outside investor – an Austrian PE / VC fund, communicating with their internal advisors and presenting during board meetings

• Maple Bear is a Canadian chain for education institutions (over 400 worldwide) with a mixed ownership and franchising model.

• I designed a model to evaluate the attractiveness of 15 markets across the region, using macroeconomic and educational indicators (e.g. penetration of private education, share of families with a certain income, etc.) which was used to determine scope of the franchise and potential financial metrics of the project

• For several key cities (e.g. capitals and Tier 2 cities in Bulgaria and Romania) I did a detailed study of competitors – e.g. segmenting private kindergartens among those with an international accreditation, “quasi” international, etc. comparing price ranges, client offering and so forth

• This was a project for a local PE fund, which had acquired the former slag pond of the largest steel production plant in Bulgaria and the Balkans (defunct since the late 1990s). The tailings dam covers and area of over 1.5 million sq. m. and contains approximately 1 million tons of iron, besides other valuable metals

• The combined CAPEX / OPEX for the recovery part of the project was for over €50m and subsequent plans included the establishment of a PV plant on the site (worth over €70m itself), thus participation of outside investors was required

• I helped to consolidate the reports of various consultants and technical experts (environment, recycling) and prepare an investment-related presentation, outlining the project value and benefits, the investment project phases and milestones, etc.

• Another major element was the preparation of a detailed long-term financial model including various assumptions for input and output cost fluctuations, financing scenarios, etc.

• EFSE is a Luxembourg-based investment fund (about €1 bn). The fund works with banks and microfinance institutions in 16 countries in Southeast Europe and the Caucasus, providing sub-loans to small businesses and individuals.

• My role was to support the task force, appointed by EFSE’s Board, which provided strategic guidance about potential focus shift (e.g. from senior debt instruments to equity ones)

• As a part of the market assessment, I organized a survey of the fund’s local partners (about 60 banks and microfinancing institutions in 16 countries) to understand better the profile of their loan recipients, lending criteria, etc.

• The other main goal of my project was to benchmark the activities of EFSE vis-à-vis major international financing institutions (e.g. EBRD, EIB)

• Deerberg is based near Hamburg and specializes in sustainable female fashion, home textiles, and other products. Founded in 1986, the company has revenue about €60-80m.

• I have worked on three different short-term projects with the company’s CEO and senior management

• The first project was about budgeting and reporting. My role was to analyze the existing budgeting procedure (heads of different departments provided information to the CFO, who summarized it and set targets) and to suggest improvements. Additionally, I was asked to prepare a dashboard template for the CEO, aggregating financial and other KPIs – which was to be implemented by the IT department of the company, so senior management could follow the most important metrics

• The second project was the preparation of a presentation for a financial institution, where the content was provided by the company itself, while my role was to structure and visualize it

• The third project was the analysis of a survey to about 1500 former customers, where I had to discover trends (e.g. based on age, geography, interaction with competitors, etc.)