The distress of investment

Maxim Shkolnick, partner at Focus Estate Fund: The strategy of our fund from the start has been to focus on the markets of Eastern Europe, in particular on medium-sized commercial real estate projects. The logic behind this is quite simple - the economies of these countries are growing steadily, the business environments are transparent and favourable. Besides, our experience of the Polish market has been good having been a shareholder of Polish company Kleba Invest even before it debuted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. This is a Polish real estate developer that specialises in defining the strategy of retail parks as well as constructing, leasing and selling them. The deciding factors during the decision making were the low interest rates, the high yields with minimal risks in retail real estate and adequate liquidity. Could you tell us something about the origins of the Focus Estate Fund? The partners are Andriy Kozin, Mykola Stetsenko, Oleksandr Romanyshyn and myself. The partners