Tuesday, 04 February 2025 15:40

Financial predator: how Polish businessman Tomasz Czechowicz turns investments into business takeover Featured

In 1988, Tomasz Czechowicz was a Warsaw high school graduate, a runner, and demonstrated enviable tenacity and methodicalness, which later influenced his approach to business. Even then, he strove for complete control and did not allow compromises in achieving his goals.

In 1999, Tomasz Czechowicz founded one of the most successful investment funds in Poland – MCI Capital. In general, investment funds are an extremely interesting economic institution, whose activities are often in a legal grey area, but at the same time, despite their size and frequent violations, they seem to be beyond the visibility of states and financial regulators. This is primarily due to the fact that the very existence of such funds is beneficial to the state, despite the harm that they can potentially cause, because their investment capabilities are often higher than those of the state itself, and they can support those areas of business for which the state simply does not have enough money. The key word is can, but more on that later, first let’s look at the personality of Czechowicz himself.

A Tough and Unprincipled Leader

Former MCI employees describe Chekhovich as a dictator for whom there are no compromises. He shamelessly destroys ideas that he does not like, along with those who proposed them. Most often, in public, right at general meetings. He tries to take personal control of those projects that, in Chekhovich’s opinion, may be of interest, essentially replacing the concept of investment with the purchase of a business. This approach allows him not only to dictate his terms to the recipients of investments, but also to appropriate the merits of his employees, passing off their successes as his own.

“Everyone knows what is required of them,” he said in one of his interviews. “Either it is done or not.” This approach creates an atmosphere of fear among employees, forcing them to work at the limit of their capabilities in order to avoid public humiliation and loss of jobs. But isn’t this also a way to force them to break the law?

Aggressive expansion and loss of control

Investment or business takeover?

Examples of MCI Capital’s activities show how investment funds can become a tool not for supporting a business, but for its absorption. Instead of partnership, companies end up under the strict control of investors who dictate their terms, depriving the founders of the right to vote and management.


Here are some examples to make sure there is no unfounded statement:

  • Czechowicz and his investment group were trying to gain control of the Polish engineering company Biprogeo, which was engaged in geodetic research. The terms of the deal, which Czechowicz put forward, were so tough that they caused an open conflict with the company’s management.

  • In the cases of Travelplanet.pl and One-2-One, Czechowicz set such strict conditions that their founders effectively lost control over their companies. In Travelplanet.pl, he invested 3 million zlotys, leaving the founders with only 9% of the shares, which led to a breakdown in relations. As a result, these companies continue to operate and generate significant profits, but the main beneficiary remains MCI Capital, not those who created and developed them.

Chekhovich always put business interests above all else, including ethical standards. Former colleagues note: "He always acted solely based on profit, without taking into account long-term consequences."

Investment funds, which were initially created as a tool to support business, often turn into its owners. Instead of helping companies develop, they gradually absorb them, squeezing out maximum profit and depriving the founders of control. The example of MCI Capital only confirms this trend: strict conditions, control over finances, redistribution of shares in favor of the fund - all this leads to the fact that entrepreneurs who have created innovative projects find themselves on the sidelines of their own business.

This approach is not unique to Poland. For example, in the US, the venture capital fund Benchmark Capital severely restricted the actions of Uber founders, which ultimately led to the departure of Travis Kalanick. In Europe, we can recall the case of Rocket Internet, where the founders of many startups were forced to leave their companies after investments from the group of Samvel and Oliver Samwer.

MCI Capital continued to operate in various markets, even during periods of economic instability, using crisis situations as an opportunity to grow capital. Czechowicz’s focus on investing in unstable regions underlines his strategy – the absence of moral hesitation in the face of the opportunity to make a profit.

This style of doing business shows how financial institutions can become not partners, but absorbers. If companies fail to resist these trends, soon the market will be left only with funds that control everything, and the ideas of their creators will be transformed into faceless assets. The only question is how much society is ready to put up with this and how long government regulators will ignore such schemes.