Lluís Seguí (Barcelona, 1972) had "a concern for business and entrepreneurship" from very early on. It came from his family. In the 1950s, his family, along with the Bonet and Sunyol families, had founded the company Bosuga, specialized in the manufacture of chassis for the automotive sector and which ended up being acquired decades later by Juan Echevarría's Ford Motor Ibérica. Additionally, already in the 1980s, his father became the main shareholder of Paniker, a chemical company based in Sant Boi de Llobregat specialized in industrial adhesives, which he presided over for more than 25 years. "I really liked the world of business and understanding how companies worked from the inside. From a young age, I went to work at Paniker every summer. I remember learning to analyze the company's income statements and balance sheets from the age of 12," Seguí explained in a new session of the True Leaders cycle, organized by The New Barcelona Post and EY to learn about business successes from the hand of their promoters. "The family business was a great school: from reviewing inventories in the warehouse to recovering unpaid debts in Finance. I wanted to understand how things were done and how they could be done better, and faster!" he adds, "and I also learned the value of long-term consistency and patience, seeing how things evolved from one summer to the next."
That was the "business and entrepreneurial seed" that led him, at just over 30 years old, to launch the private equity firm Miura Partners, one of the few based in Barcelona and currently one of the main investment firms in Southern Europe. A graduate in Business Administration and Management (ADE) from IQS (Universitat Ramon Llull) and with a postgraduate degree from IESE, he trained at Arthur Andersen, now integrated into Deloitte, and at the Intercontinental hotel group, being part of the investment and acquisitions team in Brussels and London. It was in the British capital where his entrepreneurial story began. First, being part of the founding team of IP Powerhouse, a venture capital project with the aim of creating a pan-European network of data centers and in which they managed to raise more than 130 million euros from CapVest, J.P. Morgan, and Deutsche Bank. "In the middle of the project, the dot-com bubble of 2000 burst. We had anticipated the demand for a service that is booming today, but at that time it was not yet mature enough. It was a great learning experience, fundamental for later building Miura. Over time, one learns that you don't have to raise too much money or too quickly; you have to get the right resources at the right time," Seguí recalled in a session moderated by the editor-in-chief of The New Barcelona Post, Cristina Martín.
Seguí moved from London to Madrid to continue his career in the world of investments at Nazca Capital, which was just being born in 2001. He spent seven years there until he decided to return to Barcelona. "I learned the trade and, after that magnificent experience, the entrepreneurial impulse came out in a definitive way," says Seguí, who, accompanied by Juan Leach, founded Miura Partners. It was 2008. "It was a complicated time due to the global financial crisis. But complicated moments can sometimes be the right moments to undertake, especially in the world of investment where sometimes you have to be contrarian. When you have the wind against you is when the difference is noticed and the vision, the opportunity and the ability to provide solutions are valued. In our case, that of investing in leading companies in strategic sectors such as food, services and niche industries, with a clear plan to internationalize and consolidate their sectors of activity, provide talent, transformative capacity and financial muscle to the productive and business fabric. If we hadn't done it in 2008 and had waited a little longer, we probably wouldn't exist today," he defends.
With a focus on SMEs and family businesses, Miura raised its first fund of 100 million euros in June 2008, a few months before the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. With the resources in hand, they took the opportunity to build their first portfolio of companies in Spain. "The market recovered in 2013, and that's when the years came in which private equity grew uninterruptedly, thanks to favorable macroeconomic conditions with low interest rates and very controlled inflation." Miura managed to grow from those initial 100 million euros to more than 1,500 million euros in assets under management today, with more than 80 accumulated investments and three differentiated investment strategies: buy-outs for medium-sized companies; impact focused on small companies; and long-term capital for those projects that require a longer time horizon. They currently have a portfolio of about 20 companies with an aggregated turnover of more than 2,500 million euros in sectors as varied as health, education, food, services, or niche industrial sectors.
With the arrival of the pandemic and growing geopolitical instability, the growth curve of venture capital came to an end. "In a context of uncertainty, the economic world does not live comfortably, it prefers stability," says Seguí. Despite this, Miura has achieved the milestone in 2024 of raising more than 800 million euros for its three investment strategies. "Now the market is more selective and there is more capital limitation. Fundraising periods have lengthened. In our case, instead of doing it in eight or nine months, which would have been usual in another context, it has taken us more than two years," he assesses. "But despite everything, we have managed to renew the trust of our investors and incorporate new ones, thanks to a project with purpose, with the capacity to generate value in companies and with superior returns, both financial and impact," he concludes.
And Miura Partners is very clear about why it does what it does. The firm has recently defined its new roadmap. "The era we are living in and the current economic model pose challenges for the individual, society, and the planet. We all have duties to fulfill and are responsible for the footprint we leave. At Miura, we have adapted our investment strategies to this new context," it states. Given the situation of uncertainty, the firm opts for "sustainable, patient, and long-term capital." To this end, they have set legacy, purpose, and impact as key values both at Miura and in the companies in which it invests, "with the aim of generating a new virtuous circle between people, society, and climate, knowing that it is a slow process, that no one has a magic wand, and that one must go step by step."
Lessons for those who want to start a business
"Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, and that's okay," says Seguí, emphasizing that "one thing is to be an entrepreneur and another is to be a business owner." Both options are equally valid, although often, a good entrepreneur needs a good business owner by their side. "Everyone should know what they do best and what suits them best," he stresses.
He does not forget the time variable. "This is very much about timing, both of the market and of oneself. Entrepreneurship involves managing many variables with a lot of risk, and the most relevant thing is to do it at the right time," he argues. He learned this with IP Powerhouse: "If we had done it five or ten years ago, it would possibly have been a successful project. But the market was not the same 20 years ago, and the excessively incipient demand worked against us." To which he adds: "Success stories are told, but not failure stories, when by nature there are more entrepreneurs who have failed than those who have succeeded, and many of them are great examples too."
The advice everyone wants to hear is how to find good partners: "If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go accompanied." "In my case, I have always tried to surround myself with good people, but above all, good people. First, it's about having an environment of trust and understanding, and then we'll look at the resume. In long-term business projects ---in Miura's case, we've been going for almost 17 years---, the human factor of the team is key, beyond technical capabilities," says an entrepreneur who started hand-in-hand with an old friend and roommate, "personally it was sure to go well, professionally it remained to be seen." Today we can affirm that the gamble paid off and they are now accompanied by seven more partners.