Martin Halusa is the worldwide CEO of Apax Partners, a global private equity group firm based in the United Kingdom which invests in five industry sectors: tech & telecom, media, retail & consumer, healthcare, financial & business services. Apax was initially one of the investors in Spanish airline Vueling, until 2007.

Halusa joined Apax in 1990 from Daniel Swarovski Corporation and BCG. His bound with Georgetown University comes from his student period, when he got a BA. He also has a MBA from Harvard Business School and a PhD in Economics from the University of Innsbruck.

Martin Halusa, CEO of a company that invests in five interesting sectors, says: “In this period where deal completions have slowed down, it is critically important that we thoroughly understand the landscape so that we are best positioned to take advantage of buying opportunities when they become available.” Over the upcoming upcomming years his company plans to stick to investments within those sectors, however, he explains, “…given the current economic climate, we are spending a lot of time really digging down into niche sub-sectors to assess which areas are best placed to weather the tougher conditions we may be facing. There are cyclical sector dynamics and then there are sub-sectors which have their own cycles. At the moment we are spending a lot of time investigating these dynamics, analyzing change in terms of business cycles and structural market shifts.”

Apax usually looks for strong, established companies with the ability to grow, particularly intermediate size companies. Apax prefers deals in which they are in a proprietary situation or where they have a clear and strong angle. This is where they feel their large global team and sector focus really helps unearth opportunities.

Regarding the demands on transparency in the international markets, Mr. Halusa thinks this is a natural occurrence in a maturing market, and also a function of the huge growth in international financial markets. “In terms of private equity, up until a few years ago, the mainstream press and politicians were not interested in private equity. Demands for transparency grew as we began to complete larger deals and take over companies in which the public at large felt they were ‘stake-holders’. Although it will take time for some in the industry to adjust, I welcome these calls for increased transparency.

I think that these demands are also part of a wider pattern. As global finance has grown, people feel that increasing power over the economy and jobs is being vested in the hands of institutions that they feel are secretive and unaccountable. Hedge funds, private equity companies, banks and sovereign wealth funds are all part of this dynamic and I think it is understandable that people want to know more about who these people are. This raises a bigger question about how national Governments can regulate global finance”.

When it comes to his Georgetown experience, he remembers it as “very intense, both on the academic and social side. Academically, I made the mistake of graduating in 2.5 instead of 4 years by taking on a heavy workload, so I spent a lot of my time in the library - but loved the full immersion into fascinating subjects with very good teachers. Socially I was lucky in that my father was an ambassador to the U.S. from Austria, so I could take full advantage of what Washington had to offer”

And to all those new students that are entering Georgetown he advises them “to explore subjects they know nothing about and to enjoy the breadth of knowledge available at a school like Georgetown. After graduation it is mostly a journey of focus and limited time to let the mind wander to interesting areas which have no immediate application.
After graduation my advice is: pick a growing industry to work in and make sure your first boss is a good coach and developer of people. And don’t fall in to the greed trap.”