Strategy
Qualis looks for companies that lead their markets or that have leadership potential. It makes long-term investments of capital and human resources.Although Qualis is a diversified group, its investment strategy is guided by simple criteria.
• Qualis’ aim is to invest in companies that are already leaders in their markets or that are likely to become leaders through a step-change or strategic increase in scale in a specific business or sector (change of business model, sector consolidation, industrial restructuring) or through a possible technological breakthrough.
• Qualis takes the view that it is unwise to invest according to the same model all the time, and therefore invests in:
- primary or secondary LBOs, where the automatic gearing effect increases the expected return on capital committed;
- start-ups – the internet revolution has caused the often underused talents of French scientists to be discovered or rediscovered;
- turnaround situations, taking advantage of financiers’ limited appetite for such companies;
• Investments are made with a medium- to long-term horizon. A company’s time horizon should not be limited, and so Qualis does not commit to any timescale for its investments. It focuses primarily on developing companies’ industrial projects.
Qualis’ operational management is based on active involvement in its subsidiaries’ activities.
• It helps managers analyse their businesses, to develop the company’s ‘dream’. Energy and money must be invested to define and implement a long-term industrial strategy.
• Qualis systematically encourages innovation, which is fundamental to business growth. Qualis’ role is to get the company to innovate and fulfil its potential, to ‘work every inch of available land’.
• It supports and strengthens companies’ management by giving managers an interest in their companies’ development and that of Qualis. It circulates information and personnel between Qualis-owned companies. This gives young companies or turnaround situations access to knowledge and skills that they would otherwise lack through their limited resources or appeal.
Increasing Qualis’ value is both an objective and consequence of this approach. Money is both an indicator of success and a resource for achieving it.