Private equity · Zurich
Backing overlooked businesses to create exceptional outcomes
Majority investments in European mid-market companies — mainly across DACH, in industrial and healthcare products and services.
17
Senior C-level and board roles held by the partners
2,200
European companies mapped and maintained in-house
238
Operators in our network, on a 48-hour call-back rule
Who we are
We buy companies whose quality is not in question
Some very good companies stop being developed. The owner’s mandate has moved on, a succession is unresolved, or the business has reached the end of a fund’s life.
The quality is still there. The ownership is not. Balto buys these companies outright and gives them what they have been missing — leadership, a clear strategy, and an owner who is present.
We take majority positions, we hold them for as long as the work takes, and we put our own capital into every transaction alongside our investors.
Approach
Reaching a company before a process sets the price
A growing, differentiated pool
A large pool of quality European mid-market businesses is reaching the end of its current ownership, with later-life assets expected to grow by around 20% per year through 2030. Very few buyers look at these companies one at a time.
Where we look
Majority positions, primarily across DACH and opportunistically across wider Europe. Leaders in industrial and healthcare markets, in products and services — resilient niches with recurring demand and nothing standing between the business and its customer.
How we find them
Fund-level information in the DACH market is not public. We maintain working relationships with limited partners, general partners, lenders, legal advisers, secondary advisers and executive networks, which lets us cross-check a signal from three directions and form a view on a company before it is for sale. The output is a bilateral conversation, not a process.
In scope
- Majority holdings, or decisive control
- Mature operating businesses
- Equity from EUR 5m to more than EUR 50m
- Carve-outs, successions, owners whose mandate has moved on
Not in scope
- Structurally broken businesses
- Passive minority exposure
- Venture and early stage
- Anything we cannot make materially better as owners
If you are an owner deciding what happens next, or an adviser with a situation that does not fit a standard process, we will give you a clear answer quickly — and tell you early if it is not for us.
Where we invest
Leaders in industrial and healthcare markets — in products and in services.
Demand that repeats
Consumables, replacement parts, service and aftermarket — revenue that arrives whether or not a customer is buying new equipment this year.
Nothing in between
The business sells to the people who actually use its product, so it keeps the relationship, the pricing and everything it learns from them.
Something hard to copy
A qualified range, a technical standard, a catalogue a customer will not risk switching away from.
Value creation
People, Strategy, Results
What we believe about owning a business.
Value creation is not a document handed to management at closing. It is something a board and a management team build together, argued honestly and owned by the people who actually have to deliver it. We think it begins with people rather than with plans, and that most of what follows is a consequence of getting that part right.
People
It starts with the people already there
Every plan we have seen work was carried by a team that believed in it. So our first months as owners are spent understanding who is running the business, what they have been trying to do, and what has been in their way. Usually it is not talent that is missing. It is a shareholder who was not paying attention, a board that asked for reporting rather than judgement, and decisions that nobody was empowered to take.
More often than not, the team is already there.
Strategy
Fewer things, done properly
Good companies rarely underperform for want of ideas. They underperform because too many of them were half-funded, and the uncomfortable choice kept being deferred. We work through that choice with management rather than around them: what this business is genuinely best at, where it deserves to compete, and what it should stop doing. Then we fund the answer.
The hard part is deciding what to stop.
Results
Ambition, held honestly
We are direct about what has to change and realistic about how long real change takes. Progress is tracked openly against a small number of measures everyone has agreed on, so nobody learns where they stand from a board pack. Our ownership ends one day, as every owner’s does. What matters is that the business is stronger, better led and worth more when it does.
What we leave behind is the point.
How ownership tends to unfold
01
Back the business
Quality that has been overlooked
02
Get behind the team
Leadership, board and alignment
03
Sharpen the strategy
Where to compete, what to stop
04
Deliver together
Growth, productivity, investment
05
Hand it on well
A stronger business, a good next owner
18
Value drivers we track with management, so progress stays visible and honest
65
Project methodologies, given to management as a toolbox from day one
238
Operators who accelerate execution, on a tracked 48-hour call-back rule
Our mission
To become Europe’s leading builder of tomorrow’s champions from today’s overlooked companies.
Select a fundamentally strong business, acquire it well, unlock its potential, realise it deliberately. We have invested together since 2023, we commit our own capital to every transaction, and we hold ourselves to the same standard we ask of the companies we own.
Team
Three partners who have run companies, not only bought them
Each stage of an investment is led by someone with directly relevant experience. The capabilities are complementary because the temperaments are.
Dawid Haug
Partner · Origination
Leads origination, supports portfolio companies and represents ownership at board level. Nine years across private equity at Evoco, principal investing at Gunvor and investment banking at Stifel and Kepler Cheuvreux, plus a directorship inside a German family business he repositioned.
He starts with the company rather than the process, and would rather spend two years on a relationship than meet the same business in a room with five other bidders.
Maximilien Job
Partner · Execution & structuring
Leads structuring, transaction architecture and exit processes. Eight years at Evoco leading transactions across industrial, consumer and healthcare, and serving on portfolio company boards. CFA charterholder, MA from the University of St. Gallen.
He asks the awkward question in week one rather than month six, and structures for the exit from the day of entry.
Stefan Boeni
Partner · Portfolio & investors
Leads portfolio oversight, governance and value creation, and is the primary partner to investors. Nine years at Roland Berger, then four years inside an industrial group including CEO of two Arbonia businesses at EUR 90m and EUR 30m revenue, accountable for the P&L. Private equity at Waterland and Evoco.
He has carried the plan himself, which is why he is calm with management and direct about what has to change.
Sophie Mack
Analyst
Supports origination research, company screening and transaction analysis. Previously fund due diligence, M&A advisory and strategy consulting at REIA Capital, Deloitte and Kearney. Completing an MA in Accounting and Corporate Finance at the University of St. Gallen.
Contact
Building the next chapter together
Zurich, and the companies within a day of it.
Whether you are an owner considering what happens next, an adviser with a situation, or an investor who wants to understand how we work — the fastest route is a direct conversation with one of us.
Nothing on this website constitutes an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe for, any security or interest in any vehicle managed or sponsored by Balto Capital Partners AG, and it must not form the basis of any investment decision.