Romanian entrepreneur-VC meeting platform VentureConnect has recently showcased a success story with local network training leader, BITTNET Systems. After participating in the November 2011 VentureConnect program, BITTNET successfully garnered a 24 percent equity sale to Mr. Razvan Capatina, a 10-year veteran of the marketing and advertising industry. The investment will be used to further extend [...]

Central Europe focused private equity firm Innova Capital may exit its investment in Romania’s leading spring water bottler and distributor, the La Fantana Group. Innova had picked a 92 per cent stake in La Fantana for EUR 35 million in 2007. The firm currently serves nearly 70 per cent offices in Romania and 60 per [...]

British insurance major Aviva has sold its life insurance and pensions business in Romania and life insurance business in Hungary and the Czech Republic to MetLife Inc. The businesses had combined assets of EUR 57 million at the end of H1, 2011. The deal is expected to be completed before the end of 2012, subject [...]

Summify – a Romanian start up that uses social analytics data to create personalized news aggregation service for individual users, has been acquired by microblogging site Twitter. According to some analysts, this can be termed as talent acquisition by Twitter rather than a business purchase since Summify stopped accepting new users immediately after and will [...]

Private equity firm GED capital-owned Infopress Group Romania has completed the acquisition process for Révai Printing House, which was formerly owned by the Polestar Group of Britain. The combined turnover for the new group will exceed EUR 80 mln and the employee count will be approximately 500, making it the largest printing operation in the CEE [...]

Enterprise Investors (EI) has followed up with a EUR 10 mln investment in Profi Rom Foods thorough its Polish Enterprise Fund VI. The additional funding will be used to expand operations through new stores, as well as for acquiring smaller chain stores within Romania. Total investment by PEF VI in Profi now stands at EUR [...]

Amromco, one of Romania’s first private companies to produce natural gas, received the investment backing of First Reserve, which currently holds a portfolio of approximately USD 12.5 billion in the energy industry.

Expur S.A., a Romanian agriculture business, will receive a EUR 80 million syndicated financing deal from EBRD. The loan will be used to help develop a market for rapeseed meal and produce sunflower seeds that are higher in oleic acid. The higher acid content in the sunflower seeds will produce greater quantities of oil; an [...]

GED, a Spanish based private equity firm, has purchased a 30% share in Continental Hotels, from Czech based PPF Partners. This will increase GED’s holdings in the Romanian based hotel chain to 50%. This purchase represents the largest investment GED has made in Eastern Europe since 1996. The remaining shares will be held by Enache [...]

A joint venture agreement between General Electric and German wind-farm developer Prowind has been reached to develop a 300MW grid connection with Transelectrica, Romania’s grid operator. The new wind farms will be connected with Transelectrica’s new sub-station to be built near the town of Banca, and will be spread over four locations with the help [...]

Expat Capital, a Bulgarian financial company, has purchased a 20% share of Eurohold Bulgaria. Eurohold is a local financial and industrial group. The sale took place on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange with shares selling for 1.215 leva per share. Total sale was valued at 26.4 million leva. StarCom Holding, Eurohold’s largest shareholder agreed to the [...]

Spain’s GED has added yet another portfolio company to its Happy Tours group by acquiring Romania’s Prestige Tours. Since GED took over Happy Tours in 2007, it has added two other companies to the platform. Both companies, Travel House and Paravion.ro, were Romanian competitors to Happy Tours. When the acquisition is complete the Prestige brand [...]

Citing an eight-fold return on its investment, Enterprise Investors has sold a significant portion of its shares in Poland’s Kruk International as part of an IPO on the Warsaw Stock exchange. The IPO netted Kruk a total of €92 million, of which 90% came from institutional investors. Retail investors accounted for the remaining 10%. For [...]

CEE private equity investor 3TS Capital Partners recently announced a substantial investment in Avangate, a Netherlands-based company providing marketing and distribution solutions for software companies. Avangate plans to use the financing to further develop its e-commerce platform and expand into new markets. The €4 million investment will be spread out over the next six months [...]

Turkven Private Equity and a group of co-investors have sold a 96% stake of Provus Services Provider to Poland’s Innova Capital. As part of the sale, Innova also gains control of Provus subsidiary Romcard. Together, the two companies are the largest providers of credit and debit cards, and their related transactions, in all of Romania. Innova officials [...]

Axxess Capital has announced the establishment of its third fund, the €150 million Emerging Europe Accession Fund. First close was held at an impressive €94 million. However, the €150 million target is down from an original figure of €200 million. The fund aims to take advantage of low company valuations brought on by the financial [...]

Pending Romanian regulatory approval, Eureko Asigurari will sell the nation’s first private general hospital to Advent International portfolio company Centrul Medical Unirea (CMU). The acquisition of Euroclinic Medical Centers (Euroclinic) is part of Advent’s strategy of building CMU into Romania’s market leader for upscale medical services. Euroclinic will keep its own name for market recognition purposes. Romanian patients already [...]

Horia Manda, Ionel Klipper, and Sandu Neculai, three members of the management team at the Romanian American Investment Fund (RAEF), have purchased a combined 68.3% share of Intercapital Invest, a Romanian securities broker. Manda acquired the largest share at 37.7%, Klipper was next at 27.1%, and the remaining 3.5% was taken by Neculai. The trio has also [...]

Kraft Foods Inc. has found a buyer for Romanian confectioner Kandia-Excelent, as part of the European Commission’s requirements for Kraft’s acquisition of Cadbury. In order for the acquisition to be approved, Kraft was required to sell both Kandia-Excelent and Cadbury’s E Wendel operation in Poland. Oryxa Capital purchased Kandia-Excelent. The sale includes a Bucharest manufacturing plant and [...]

Romanian SMEs negatively affected by the credit crunch may see a glimmer of light on the horizon, thanks to the EBRD and Millennium Bank Romania. The two institutions have teamed up to provide new financing aimed at helping SMEs with working capital and mid-term funding. The deal calls for a €20 million line of credit [...]