Shareholder’s Manual

This aims to provide investors an understanding of the company, it’s way of generating value, it’s prospects and policies.

What we do

Bittnet is in the knowledge bussiness. We accumulate knowledge and transfer it to our customers in two forms: IT training and IT Solutions Integration.

IT training addresses the need of professionals from IT departments of Romanian and foreign companies to be able to implement, optimize, maintain and troubleshoot the IT infrastructure of their companies, while always keeping up to date with new developments in this very fast moving field. We cover the waterfront in ‘administration’, from networking (switches, routers, wireless access points), to computers, servers, datacenter and virtualization, security, telephony, telepresence, collaboration, mobility, BYOD, databases, etc. We offer access to official curriculum from the most famous vendors in the IT landscape: Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, VMWare, ITIL, Linux, PMP, etc.

IT solutions integration addresses the need of companies to have functional, dependable, resilient IT infrastructures that enable and support them in doing their business. This means that our team consults customers about their needs, their development plans, identifies IT solutions that will respond to the project objectives after which we sell, implement, optimize, maintain and troubleshoot the proposed solutions. The solutions that we deliver also cover the entire spectrum of technologies and vendors in the IT landscape.

How do we do it

In order to fulfill customer needs in the above mentioned areas of activity, we continually scout for talent. We recruit, train and professionally develop young persons willing to learn and work with us and also share our company values: Integrity, Flexibility, Competence and Performance. Our team continuously learns and applies the newest knowledge available in their respective fields of specialization, in order to be able to transfer it to customers. We are highly certified and continually expand in this area. Our technical and project management abilities are certified by world class IT vendors.

With training being a definitory part of our organization’s DNA, when we recruit we favor character and integrity, intelligence, desire to work and learn instead of “years of experience”. This allows us to form individuals in the Bittnet way, and also depend on our team members to do the right thing without being constantly overseen, controlled and tied down by countless procedures, checks and balances. This systems works if populated with bright and honest individuals, and in turn, helps us attract this type of team members. Geniuses hate being constrained.

How we manage the company

In line with Warren Buffett’s philosophy, which is also reflected in an old Romanian adage, we always try to put ourselves in the shoes of our interlocutor. We strongly believe in sharing the risks and the results, and aligning the interests of all stakeholders: customers, suppliers, employees, management and shareholders:

• all people involved in the business are measured and compensated on a results basis, so that managers, employees and contractors always have in mind the interest of the customer AND company profitability,
• the management of the company is ensured by the main shareholders (and founders), so that the interest of managers, employees and shareholders are aligned,
• furthermore, the founders / manager’s wealth is significantly linked to the company, being the only important source of wealth, strengthening the alignment of interests with the shareholders.

The opportunity that we have

The company activates in an exciting and fast moving field – Information Technology. We have until now managed to grow at a significant rate, and always being profitable. The snowball has acquired significant momentum. On the other hand, the current size of the company, coupled with the trend of consolidation across all industries, means that only correct direction to go is still upwards. That is why we intend to continue to invest any available source in the development of the company.

For shareholders, this translates into a “fully reinvested profits” policy, which also equates with a “no dividend” policy. Also in line with Warren Buffett’s philosophy, we intend to maintain this reinvestment policy for as long as the growth prospects of the company outweigh the growth prospects of the general market. In the long term, the value that a company creates is generally reflected in the value of the company itself, and it’s stock price. We believe that we can maintain a growth rate above the one of the general market for some time now. Our current operational and delivery capacity is such that we can extract accelerated profit growths from the increases in revenues – and that is our strategy: to keep growing the revenues in similar “gross margin” conditions, which will generate more money to cover a generally fixed structure of costs, therefore significantly adding to the bottom line.

Risk Mitigation

There are numerous risks that we face as a company, and that investors face when buying shares. They are described in the Information Memorandum. On top of the company specific risks that come from the line of business and the size of the company, there is the general risk of investing in equity. On the other hand, the management has it’s own fortunes tied to the well being of the company, so we share the same risks and their materialization would affect us more than other investors. We believe that we have a good opportunity for continuing the growth of the company and that the foreseeable results overweigh the risks. That is why we are running this company after all!