Once more we see an increasing trend in corporate carve-outs and disposals, which we historically have seen especially in uncertain economic situations. This leads to interesting opportunities for the PE sector to find new assets that would not automatically be on the market.

For the corporates this is often a new situation which may be challenging, or at least raise some issues. Even if there are subsidiaries there will be separation areas, but if it is a full-blown carve-out with no or limited legal entities involved, it becomes significantly more challenging.

Our keynote speaker, Anders Nordström, CFO of ABB Finland, has successfully carved out the ABB Full Service in Finland, which became the Finnish part of the Quant business acquired by Nordic Capital. Currently he works hands-on in preparing the ABB Power Grid business carve-out (became legal entity as of 1 November) for finalizing the disposal to Hitachi in 2020.

Other speakers and discussions to be announced later will cover the corporate carve-outs and how this impacts the companies, and the opportunities and challenges it leads to for PE as well.