Visent Invest is an investment firm owned by Outokumpu. Its job is to develop small and medium size enterprises in towns in Sweden, where Outokumpu operates. Since its establishment in 1992, Visent Invest has been involved in the creation of about 500 new jobs.
Visent Invest finances promising small and medium size enterprises through shareholdings or by providing loans. The basic idea is that the enterprise gets an initial boost, and Visent Invest leaves the venture only when the company concerned is firmly on its feet.
Companies supported by Visent Invest in 2006 employ about 140 people in total. The numbers of employees in the individual companies vary between two and almost 40. The companies’ operating sectors also vary greatly. They include, for instance, a recycling firm and a manufacturer of lift doors in Degerfors and an IT company and a workshop producing rainwater chutes in Avesta. To date, Visent Invest has supported about 60 different companies.
In its operating locations, Visent Invest has become a kind of leading star in the field of corporate finance: whenever it provides financial support for a particular fledgling company, the company concerned finds it easier to attract other investment companies and banks to support it.
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Published in Outokumpu and the environment 2006 report