In 1993, he joined Providencia (later called Generali) as an investment manager, although at the time he had little to do with investments – but at the time, “anyone who spoke English or German, knew what a bond or a share was, could easily find a job in the field”. It proved to be a lasting decision: he then worked there for 25 years, building up Generali Fund Management, which grew substantially under his leadership: assets under management went from an initial £3 billion to over £500 billion. He finally left Generali at the end of 2018, as a consequence of burn-out caused by the multinational environment.

During this time, he had many external assignments, such as being on the board of the Stock Exchange after its transformation into a public limited company, where he represented the investor side, but also a long time member of the BAMOSZ board.

After Generali, he was initially CEO of a domestic fund manager and then second in command of a brokerage firm and private bank. It was there that he started working on IPOs. This was also the time when the joint cooperation with the TokePortal.com began, because Peter also believes that crowdfunding could be the forerunner of the BSE Xtend market.

They celebrated the end of last year in their own company, Univerz Invest, with Tivadar Zakár. They obtained the NOMAD (Nominated Adviser) status, which means they became a nominated adviser, thanks to which they can do Xtend launches. They have known each other for a long time. Tivadar is a well-educated investment professional with a strong academic background, having taught business valuation and investment at university in Gyöngyös and at Corvinus, and having traded US shares before becoming a portfolio manager. Tivadar is an incredibly skilled investment professional and last year he was the winner of the Benefit magazine investment game.

He has a track record of previous IPOs to his name. Chameleon Smart Home, ViVetech IT company and Navigator Investments, were all successful. Chameleon was still a start-up at the time of its IPO, but has grown out of it. There have been many BSE Xtend listings in recent years and they are currently seeing a lot of interest from companies in listing.

They advertise themselves as Investor maintaining relationships specialists. Peter says that what distinguishes them from other market players in investor relations is that others take either a PR or legal approach, while they focus on investor communications: translating the messages from the company’s management to investors and communicating investor questions to management. This is very important for a public company, for example, if the owners want to sell shares, they need someone to find investors who would buy the shares, or if good or bad news comes out, how to communicate it, or how to handle crisis communication in case of problems. It’s important that the communication is not ad-hoc, it has to be built on an ongoing basis, and that’s different from PR, because in PR there are a lot of ideas that are not part of investor communication.

A good example of this from abroad is Apple or Tesla, one of the big players: when Elon Musk stands up and gives a credible speech to investors, there is a lot of background work behind it. Analyses show that good investor communication also leads to a significant increase in the share price and in the value of the company.

In terms of the importance of communication, it has similarities with crowdfunding, as only those who can be reached by the communication will invest in a crowdfunding campaign.

Crisis communication is particularly important now, as it is difficult to attract investors because of the impact of crises and high yields on government bonds, but Peter says that this will end sooner or later, and then it will be important how individual companies have communicated and are communicating with their investors.

According to Péter, the ideal company for a listing is one with at least HUF 1-2 billion in revenues and a good story to tell, such as a company looking to conquer a foreign market or launch a new product. It can also be very helpful for the listing if the company has already had a successful community financing campaign and has a public stake in the company in addition to the original owners. The implementation will take 1-1.5 years, with a very detailed tax, legal and financial due diligence at the beginning, suggestions on what needs to be changed, including on the HR side and the financial side, and then the structuring will be planned and a comprehensive information document will be put together. The process costs tens of millions of forints, but has many benefits.

Certified users and campaign managers can ask Peter for advice via the Mentorplatform.