Chapter 23
FiberNet Communicationsa
Norbert Kovacs, a new associate in the London office of Warburg Pincus, was reading an investment report at his desk in early 2004, when one of the firm’s partners, William Knott, walked into his office. Unfortunately, Knott brought gloomy news: it turned out that Kovacs and Knott had just lost one of their deals in a heated auction. Both of them spent many weeks investigating this investment opportunity and were working relentlessly on the financial analysis in order to construct a winning bid. However, now the deal process came to a complete halt, as another firm in the market came up with a higher bid. Kovacs was very disappointed: he joined Warburg Pincus, one of the world’s prominent private equity firms (Exhibit 23.1), several months ago and was very eager to execute a transaction from start to finish. He worked very hard on this transaction and could not even find the time to have a proper telephone conversation with his childhood friend Peter Szepesi, who recently tracked him down and wanted to catch up.
EXHIBIT 23.1 WARBURG PINCUS
Kovacs knew Szepesi from the elementary school in Hungary, where both of them grew up. The two shared a number of interests and stayed in touch, even after Kovacs left the country in 2002 to pursue an MBA. Now, when Kovacs finally had some time, he decided to distract himself from the pessimistic thoughts ...
