William Carey Finalist

Finalist

William Carey

Founder, president

Central European Distribution Corp.

Sarasota and Warsaw, Poland

At 29, William Carey moved to Poland for two months in 1990 to run his father's agricultural exports company. A graduate of the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in economics, he had failed to make it as a golf pro.

Once abroad, Carey realized post-communist Poland offered limitless opportunities for an entrepreneur with the guts to go for it.

Carey told his father, a Brandon-based cattle rancher, he wanted to stay in Poland and carve out a business niche. Dad was supportive - to a point.

"He said the $400,000 (from the export business) can stay, but there wouldn't be any more money or corporate guarantee. Good luck," Carey recalled during a recent trip to Orlando for Central European Distribution Corp.'s annual meeting.

That was enough for Carey, who says he wanted to find success on his own. "I didn't want to grow up the son of Bill Carey," he says. "I wanted my own stake."

His early years in Poland were fraught with heartache caused by simple misunderstandings, mainly due to the differences in languages. "For example, take the word 'distribution,' " Carey explains. "If you talk to 10 people, you might get 10 different definitions of the word 'distribution,' and there I was talking in English about distribution.

"If you get deeper into the context of simple words that you think are common, the language barrier is different. You think you communicated properly and yet they didn't really understand at all."

Cultural differences created other problems, says Carey, a self-described "Florida cracker." He contends, however, that his battles were not much different than those faced by any new venture.

"We were struggling to get by, pleading with the banks for credit," he says.

Eventually, Carey learned to communicate effectively in Polish. Today, his voice reflects a slight accent.

"If it was difficult moving from A to B to C, you had to skip over a few objectives to get to your end objective," he says.

It wasn't long before Carey found his strategy for success: to find competitors and buy them to consolidate his holdings. That effort remains in effect today. CEDC acquires successful regional wholesalers, and then adds its higher-margin imported brands to the existing portfolio.

In addition to expanding the company's geographic coverage, the plan increases the company's leverage with its suppliers and clients. As a result, CEDC's customer base has increased from 7,500 in 1998 to about 31,000 in 2003 - mostly through acquisitions.

To date, CEDC has acquired 10 regional alcohol distributors in Poland, and one wine importer. All of the subsidiaries are wholly owned. The company operates the largest next-day alcoholic beverage delivery service in Poland, via its nine distribution centers and 58 satellite branches in principal cities, including Warsaw, home to company headquarters.

Average annual revenue growth has been about 55% during the same time, with revenues up from $178 million in 2001 to $429 million in 2003. Carey's market share is 30%.

In 1998, CEDC went public on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market. The initial public offering raised net proceeds of about $11 million. In 1999, the company was accepted onto the NASDAQ National Market.

At the company's 2004 annual meeting, May 3 in Orlando, the board approved a three-for-two stock split in the form of a 50% stock dividend. Stockholders increased authorized shares of common stock from 20 million to 40 million. Following the stock split, the company will have about 16.2 million shares outstanding, based on the number of shares in April.

As a manager abroad, Carey says it's tough to find managers with the ability to solve problems.

"They never had to do it under communism," Carey says. "They have had to learn to find new ways to solve problems, which creates a lot of small problems that would not exist in a more mature market."

And, he adds, he still faces his own cultural differences: "Having my background - having to learn my way from college to golf to Poland."

Luckily, Carey has time on his side. He lives fulltime in Poland, where he married a Polish woman in 1994. The couple has one daughter.

In his few free moments, Carey still golfs. But it's easier said than done.

"There's only one course in Warsaw," he says, somewhat wistfully.

STATS

Employees: 2001: 660; 2002: 1,480; 2003: 1,900.

Revenues: 2001: $178 million; 2002: $294 million; 2003: $429 million.

Average annual growth: 55%