On another day, Kersten arrives in the office at 8:30 a.m. Wasowski isn`t with him this time, so he needs his assistant/interperter, Kasia Szczepanska. She isn`t there yet, so he waits.
She arrives, then disappears again. He finds out she has gone to breakfast, so he waits some more. Here in Poland, the rules are a little different. After all, the strict timetables of Western capitalism didn`t apply here for decades.
Szczepanska finally returns from breakfast, and they`re ready to leave. It`s 10 a.m. They first head to a bank that the Enterprise Fund works with, the Powszechny Bank Kredytowy (Popular Credit Bank) in downtown Warsaw. They squeeze into one of Poland`s typically tiny, dark elevators and go up to the office of Maria Wicik, a credit officer.
Bank officials first evaluate loan applications that come to the Fund. When they recommend approval for a loan, a Fund officer like Kersten makes a personal visit to the client. He can personally approve loans of up to $20,000. Bigger loans go to a credit committee for final approval.
This morning Kersten and Szczepanska are to go to Bialystok, a city about two hours by car northeast of Warsaw. But Wicik is disappointed, wanting them first to see a man in another city, Siemiatycze. Kasia translates Wicik`s Polish: ”There`s no way to tell him you`re not coming, because there`s no phone.”
That`s how it is in Poland-no phones, especially in the smaller cities and towns. But it`s already 10:15; they`ll have to make that visit another day.
Jerzy Gliniecki, another local credit officer, hands Kersten files on businesses he`ll see in Bialystok. Kersten wants some feedback on them, but Gliniecki didn`t handle them and can`t say anything about them. Kersten also needs a good road map; the one in the Fund`s car has mysteriously disappeared. ”Do you have a map?” Kersten asks.
No, they don`t.
Does anyone know the address of an office they have to visit in Bialystok?
No.
Sometimes Poland`s new world of business doesn`t run too smoothly. ”The whole organization thing just isn`t happening for me,” Kersten grumbles.
”You`ve got a choice when you come to Poland-either die in a fit of apoplexy or deal with what you`ve got. You`ve got to remember that in this job, it doesn`t pay to get upset.”
They get on the road. It`s 10:40 a.m. They still don`t have a map.
”Do you know the way to Bialystok?” Szczepanska asks, uncertainty in her voice.
”Thankfully, I do,” Kersten says.
The drive, actually, is pleasant. Along the way are farmland, woods, fields of flowers. A horse-drawn wagon plods along. A farmer walks behind his horse with a plow. The sun shines.
”Kasia,” Kersten asks, ”would you reach back there and get those files for me? Why don`t you tell me a little bit about them.”
Kasia reaches for the files on the back seat and reads through the first. ”They want to buy a system for paging. It costs $30,000.” She is puzzled.
”Do you know what paging is? Do you have it in the States?”
Kersten nods.
”I have no idea what this is. I never heard of it.”
He starts to explain, and she says, ”Is it that you have this small beeper, and it tells you where you have to call?”
”Yes.”
”Oh, I know this. I know this.”
She reads on, trying her best, though her English isn`t perfect. Then she goes to the next file.
”They want a loan from us for $70,000. They want to produce windows.”
Suddenly, the road ends at a construction site. There`s no detour sign, so they head off into a side road. That road takes them to a river. A cow is grazing nearby. They turn around and head back, along with other drivers who also didn`t know where to go. They turn down another road where, about half a mile later, a detour sign finally appears.
Traffic slows to a crawl; a horse-drawn wagon full of coal moves slowly along.
”A day in the life, right?” says Kersten. ”It could be worse. It could be raining.”
Back in Arkansas, Kersten`s father was a farmer; his mother, a teacher and social worker. The family farm grew soybeans and rice.
”I was about 14, standing in the middle of a rice field, up to my hips in water,” he recalls. ”It was so hot even the mosquitos wouldn`t land on you, and my father and my brother and I were out there. And I said, `Well, I believe I`ll be going to college.` My father thought I had the right idea.”
Kersten ended up going to Yale University, and the family farm no longer exists. ”We were one of those family farms that didn`t make it through the farm crisis of the late 70s, early 80s.”
At 1:20 p.m. Kersten and Kasia arrive in Bialystok. The women in the Fund`s branch office in the city, one of 12 kept by the Fund in Poland, have been waiting for them. One of them has earrings in the shape of dollar signs. ”How was the photographer`s application?” she asks. ”Was it approved?”
Kasia translates, and Kersten answers, ”Yes, we approved it.” The woman, Lucyna Slizewska, seems pleased. She, too, makes loan recommendations to the Fund.
”Do you have any other applications you need looked at?” Kersten asks.
”Two dentists and a lady who`s making electrical installations picked up applications,” Slizewska says, ”but they haven`t come back.”
”Why not?” Kersten asks. He wonders if the applications are too difficult to fill out.
One of the other women, Zofia Kuptel, answers in broken English. ”I think it`s very hard. Many figure. Too much figure.”
Kersten was afraid of that. But he notes that in a way, by forcing the entrepreneur to review his finances and operations, the application can be a helpful learning tool.
The women tell Kersten that the man who wants to start the paging business called, wondering where to wait for them. They call him back, and he says he`ll come right over. He`s afraid they`ll have trouble finding his place.
In a few minutes, he`s at the door. He seems nervous, a little jumpy.
”Shall we go?” he asks. He`s wearing a blue work jacket and is carrying a file. He gets in his car, and they follow him a short distance to an apartment building.
They take another tiny, cramped elevator to the 10th floor, which is as far as the elevator goes. Then they walk up another story, to Apartment 16. The man unlocks burglar bars and padlocks; there`s a lot of property crime in Poland nowadays.
Inside is an almost-empty, bright, white room. There`s an old desk, four mismatched chairs and two rather mysterious pieces of electronic equipment. That`s all.
The man, Kazimierz Misiukiewicz, explains that he and his partners need $34,000 to complete their paging equipment.
Kasia asks him to sit down. ”He`s a little bit tense,” she tells Kersten.
”Don`t be nervous,” Kersten says. He knows a lot of people are nervous when they meet him; there`s a lot at stake.
Kersten begins his questioning: What work does he do now? Misiukiewicz tells him that he fixes antennas and cable television systems.
”How`d you figure out you wanted to go into the paging business?”
Kersten wants to know.
”I`ve been interested in paging for a long time, but only last year I found out it was possible to do this in Poland.”
He says he invited two colleagues to join him in the venture. They should be here, too, but Kersten was very late, and they finally left, not knowing what to think. He calls them and then tells Kersten they`ll come right over.
Kersten keeps up the questions. ”Who wants paging in Bialystok?”
Something seems to be lost in the translation; Misiukiewicz answers as if to a different question.
Kersten tries again, ”What kind of customers will want to buy this paging service?”
This time the answer fits: ”Doctors, businessmen, people who run their own businesses and journalists-they`re already coming and asking about the business.”
There are no letters of intent, though; they have quietly researched the market, without tipping their hand to possible competitors. ”I`ve already prepared the advertising, but I want to make sure we have the loan first and we can start up,” he says.
”Well, we`re kind of at a crossroads because I don`t want to make you a loan until I`m sure you have customers,” says Kersten.
The man smiles and shrugs. ”It`s a problem,” he agrees.
One of the other partners, Stanislaw Kalankiewicz, shows up. He doesn`t look much like a working man in his pale green double-breasted suit and bright tie. Kersten`s questions continue.
What will their monthly costs be? Rent? Utilities? Will they have a guarantee on the paging system? If it breaks, where will they fix it?
The partners tell him it can be fixed in Great Britain and, later this year, in Prague. After that, the service may even come to Warsaw.
”During your first week, how many customers do you think you`ll get?”
Kersten asks.
”Three.”
”And the second week?”
”Three.”
”Aodern world, they say. After two years, they expect 1,000 customers.
They show Kersten their license to operate. Any competitors will need a license, too, they tell him, and it took a year to get. ”We`re thinking that because we`ll be the first, we`ll get the clients,” Misiukiewicz says.
”As long as you guys realize you`ll have to put money into this firm for two years until you break even, I don`t have a problem,” says Kersten.
He then asks the partners for tax statements. ”If you have understated your taxes, tell me now,” he says. Understating is a very common practice here, where almost everyone is paid in cash.
Misiukiewicz is still clearly nervous. ”This is my first loan,” says the 36-year-old father of two. ”That`s why I`m tense.”
Credit is an everyday thing in the U.S but not in Poland. Most Poles have gone their whole lives without taking out a single loan.
As the interview is about to end, the third partner, Wieslaw Tomaszewski, shows up. He is slicker-looking, his hair combed back, his suit black, his shirt black, his tie multicolored, his shoes two-toned.
He used to be the manager of the city bus system, but last year there was a long strike, and he managed to buy all the buses when the government-run company failed.
”Bialystok is going to be a European city,” Tomaszewski boasts. ”My buses run every six minutes.” But he isn`t happy with Kersten`s questions.
”What was your bus company`s net earnings for April?” Kersten asks.
”I haven`t counted it yet,” he says. ”But I`d like to have it as my sweet secret.”
”I`d like to have it as your sweet secret, too,” Kersten tells him,
”But I have to inquire. What was the net?”
Tomaszewski starts talking about other things.
Kersten interrupts. ”I just want to know what that net is, more or less.”
”I don`t know, it`s not counted yet. But the net is my salary.”
”And-?”
The other two partners laugh. Tomaszewski just isn`t going to answer.
”Another question, please,” he says.
Kersten eventually gives up. After the interview ends, he says that he`s usually more successful in convincing applicants to reveal their wealth. He`ll have to try again later.
”That was fun. That was a fun deal,” he says. ”You had to like the guy.”
He and Kasia make their way to the next client, arriving at what seems to be the right office complex. But the sign on ghe building says No. 12, and they`re looking for No. 4. There`s no No. 4 to be found, so Kasia goes away to make a phone call and comes back announcing that a man will come down to meet them.
He arrives in a few minutes and leads them to the proper office. It`s somewhere in the back, hidden behind other buildings. Like many of Poland`s structures, it`s drab from the outside, but the offices themselves are airy and bright and decorated with plants.
Two partners, Wojciech Litwinezuk and Tomasz Dabrowski, greet them. They`re in the steel wholesaling business and also sell ingredients for the paint and lacquer industries. They explain how their business works, but the words are unusual and hard for Kasia to translate.
Again, Kersten starts with the money questions. The men are forthright in their answers; no hesitation here. Their recent net earnings are down because they`ve been investing in their new plan; they want to make windows.
”About 80 percent of windows in Poland don`t fit and have to be replaced,” Dabrowski says, using a window in the office as an example. ”Look at this window. It`s only eight years old, and look, you can`t close it correctly. In winter, cold air comes in.”
What he says is true; it seems that windows all across Poland are warped. ”Are you confident that you can produce windows?” Kersten wants to know.
”Yes.”
How much will the windows sell for? How much will it cost to make them?
Who will their customers be?
The two partners say a new theater has already asked them about producing 300 windows. ”And we have an agreement with a company that`s going to build single-family homes in Bialystok. They`re going to buy 900 windows.”
They haven`t advertised further because, just like the paging partners, they`re unsure of whether they`ll get the money to start.
They plan to buy production machinery from a well-established German firm that will also provide the advertising. They proudly demonstrate one of the German windows, well-built and efficiently insulated, and then take Kersten to a warehouse they hope will become their factory.
Kersten tells them he`ll have to contact the German firm before a decision is made and will get back to them within two weeks.
”If the loan is approved and this German firm turns out to be fly-by-night, then we`re in a lot of trouble-and so will those guys,” Kersten says as they walk away.
He and Kasia start the long drive back to Warsaw. Kersten started his day at 8:30 a.m., and by the time he gets back, it`s 8:30 p.m. Not a particularly hard day. Yesterday was worse; he had to drive to Katowice, in the south of Poland.
That day went from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., and he couldn`t even find anyone at one of the businesses he was supposed to visit. ”They were locked up tight, not a soul there. That doesn`t happen very often.”
Kersten`s work means a lot of long days, but he loves his job. One of the bad parts, though, is having to say no, which was what the Fund eventually said to the would-be windowmakers.
”We actually don`t know why we didn`t get it (the loan),” Litwinczuk says. ”We think it`s very unfair because, first of all, we have the right to know the reason for refusal.”
He says Kersten was ”very efficient and accurate,” but Litwinczuk was dismayed that no one at the Fund contacted the German firm. ”We`re still looking for someone to help us start the business,” he says.
Others, too, complain that it can be too difficult to get a loan from the Fund. Kersten wouldn`t comment on the windowmaking deal, saying that the men are entitled to financial privacy. But he said he generally looks at the
”Three C`s” when deciding on a loan: ”Character, cash flow and collateral.”
Because Poland`s economy is in flux, Kersten says, ”Nobody knows what any given collateral is worth. So rejections are typically based on weaknesses not so much with collateral but in management ability and cash flow.”
He said he likes to see prior experience in a given field. For instance, it`s hard for people who are ”essentially traders” to move into production, he says.
The other businesses got happier news:
Wanda Kemilew is getting her new ”ecologically conscious” cleaning machine; she`ll no longer have to worry about her workers` health. ”I think I`m going to cut out my competition,” she boasted, maybe including the doctors who take in cleaning.
The Jobdas will be making multicolored sweaters with four sophisticated new looms. ”It`s giving us a chance to develop,” Jeremi Jobda says.
Misiukiewicz, one of the paging partners, said that before they turned to the Fund, they ”were walking and talking to banks all over Bialystok.” But when they mentioned pagers, the Polish bankers ”got this look in their eyes. They had no idea what we were talking about. Our idea was so abstract to them. They said, `Is it a telephone or isn`t it a telephone?` ”
Kersten had no such questions. The Fund approved the loan, and the paging equipment is on its way. Bialystok, Poland, will soon see and hear its first- ever paging beepers.
