Penta founder takes backseat role

Martin Kúšik’s role at the evergreen fund will be taken over by partner Marek Dospiva and investment director Thomas von Werner, a few weeks after the firm opened its first office in Germany.

Martin Kúšik, partner and co-founder of Central and Eastern Europe-focused firm Penta Investments Group, has decided to end his active involvement in the operations of the company. 

Kúšik established Penta in 1994, in conjunction with Jaroslav Hašcák, Marek Dospiva, Jozef Oravkin and Juraj Herko. He started the firm’s Prague office in 2001, along with Dospiva, and has been spearheading its expansion in the German market since 2010. Thomas von Werner, appointed investment director for Germany in March, is now building the investment team in Penta’s new office in Munich. 

Martin Kúšik

Kúšik, whose responsibilities will be shared by Dospiva and Werner, remains a co-owner of Penta as a limited partner. 

With offices in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Germany, Penta focuses on private equity and real estate transactions in Central and Eastern Europe. It counts more than 200 employees. 

Its 2012 investments include Gehring Technologies, a German honing machines maker, Estate Consult, which runs hospitals in Slovakia, Lloyds Pharmacies, the third largest pharmacy chain in the Czech Republic, and CLAR SYSTEM, a Polish cleaning services provider. It also exited Alpha Medical laboratories, a provider of in-vitro diagnostic services in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.  

The firm has €4.7 billion of assets under management, which it controls through an evergreen fund.