About UMICO

What we do

We work in three areas. In buy & build we acquire established businesses in fragmented markets and combine them into groups with the scale to invest properly in people, systems and compliance. This we do through Paragon Capital, together with our partners Teun van der Velde and Nathalie de Regt.

In real estate and financial structuring we take equity positions in development and redevelopment, and we structure and restructure capital in situations that are too complex or too specific for standard financing. This is UMICO's own activity.

In technology we hold minority positions in a small number of companies applying advanced technology to concrete industrial and scientific problems. Also UMICO's own.

How we work

We take few positions and stay close to them. Where we hold a majority we are involved in strategy, capital allocation and the appointment of key people — and not in daily operations. The management teams we back run their businesses. Our job is to make sure they have the capital, the systems and the room to do it properly.

What we believe

Scale is becoming a condition, not an advantage. In the markets we know best, regulatory load and technical complexity are rising faster than small independent firms can absorb. Consolidation is not a fashion. It is arithmetic.

Structure is where value is won or lost. Most transactions fail on terms rather than on price. We spend disproportionate effort on how a deal is built — the waterfall, the earn-out, the governance — because that is what determines whether it works five years later.

Technology is a means. We apply it where it improves quality, removes avoidable work, or makes a job better to do. We are sceptical of technology adopted for its own sake, and we have seen enough implementations fail to be careful about sequencing.

Culture survives the transaction, or the transaction failed. Businesses are bought for their client relationships and their people. Both are voluntary.

Background

Johan Pieter Verwey's background is in Dutch tax and corporate law, M&A and real estate investment. He works in Dutch, English and French.

Early investments focused on deep technology and applied AI. In 2024 the buy-and-build activity was established, with Wey & Fields Group as its first platform.