ABACON CAPITAL — hello, community

While our primary focus these days is to work with the ABACON entrepreneurs to face the new climate of business and to act decisively, we believe it is equally important to have and share a clear, long-term, and “principles first” view of the future.

That’s why you read these lines. We like to write and share our perspectives. We use this platform to test new ideas and refine our thinking. Accordingly, this blog post is an announcement and starting point. We will share our perspectives, contribute food for thought, and encourage discussions across our community.

BORN AND EVOLVED WITH A FOUNDERS MENTALITY

ABACON CAPITAL is the long-term oriented entrepreneurial investment holding of the Büll Family Office. Our group was founded over 50 years ago in Hamburg by Albert Büll, a passionate entrepreneur with a heritage of building sustainable businesses.

Our team is small. Few individuals with different skills focused on a small number of organizations, and we are conscious of lessons learned — some hard — that become everlasting truths. Our strong network evolved from five decades of entrepreneurship helping each other.

All ABACON companies are led by exceptional entrepreneurs daring to build large independent companies that positively shape the next generations. And while some call this a “positive-sum game,” that is not our frame of mind, nor are “game”, “player,” or “deal” terms we use. We’re very serious about our work and carefully choose the words to describe it. For us, it is the co-elevation of people, purpose, and profit for a prosperous society.

THE MACRO PERSPECTIVE

We’re currently experiencing how individual, already strong tremors, can form into a global economic earthquake. It will take considerable time — perhaps several quarters — before the turbulences have been contained. It will take even longer for the global economy to recover its footing. Moreover, selected think tanks and doers are confident that we are facing the most turbulent economic and political periods in history, potentially leading to a new world order. Which is nothing to worry about overall as it happened many times before in a series of events called a Big Cycle, lasting roughly 250 years. No system of government, no economic system, no currency, and no empire lasts forever. Yet everyone is surprised when they fail.

It is a market environment that blends challenges and opportunities even stronger. A distinctive feature of enduring companies is how their leaders react to moments like these. Many legendary companies were forged in such challenging environments.

We are pursuing this by investing across public and private markets. We invest in funds and companies. Together with partners, we also build new companies.

SHARING FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Having weathered major business downturns for fifty years, we’ve learned an important lesson. In downturns, revenue and cash levels always fall more quickly than expenses. Darwin surmised that those who survive are not the strongest or the most intelligent, but the most adaptable to change.” We agree and add that these conditions often make separating the signals from the noise more difficult.

That’s why we like to share our perspectives with you and hopefully spark productive discussions in the community. Below are some of the topics we will be writing about:

• 🎯 Investments with relevance: Comparing the share of CO2 emissions to the share of venture capital in this area reveals significant disparities. Transportation, for example, accounts for 17% of CO2 emissions but has attracted 43% of VC investments since 2010. We take a look at the sectors and the compressibility of their emissions
• 🏙 Role of urban areas: With only 2% of the earth’s surface, cities are home to ~56% of the global population and responsible for ~70% of the emissions. So how can we solve the paradox of “urban prosperity versus energy”? That’s also where we elaborate on our focus area, “urban tech,” and our crucial investment thesis that “the three biggest markets in the world — energy, mobility, and buildings — are converging on top of the electrification of our economies.”
• ⚡️ Clean Abundant Energy: It is not an understatement to say that human progress has primarily been based on developing new energy sources or carriers. So how can we transform a sector that is the basis for all other sectors? And do we have to give up our supply reliability to do so?
• 🛴 Next-Generation Mobility: The car is an exciting concept: 1.5t vehicles to transport on avg. 62kg humans, in 92% of all trips just a single occupant and 85% of all trips less than 25km distance. These facts aside, the main question remains: Is it enough to electrify all cars to decarbonize personal mobility? In a simple scenario analysis, we will discuss the question if a global shift to EVs would be enough (spoiler: no!) and which role micromobility and the concept of “15-minute cities” play in this context
• 🏘 PropTech: Decarbonizing buildings is probably the most challenging undertaking. Around 80% of the building stock projected for 2050 already exists today. So how do we manage the restoration, retrofitting, and electrification of a highly fragmented stock?

Do we miss your perspective on this topic? Any topic you want to know our stance on? We’d be happy to hear from you, so feel free to reach out.

Learn more about ABACON CAPITAL on these channels:

> Follow us on LinkedIn: @abacon_capital
> Follow us on Crunchbase: @abacon_capital
> Follow our publications on Medium: ABACON's view