Deals worth €1 million on the local market in Q1

The depreciation of the national currency and a severe decline of Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) quotations, due to the subprime crisis, but also higher inflation and the unfavorable evolution of the current account deficit have failed so far to impact on financial results of local companies, according to declarations for Business Standard by investment bankers and players on the private equity market.

“We have managed to close deals worth some half a billion euro since the end of last year, at a time when the local market, and especially the international market, were hit by the subprime crisis,” said Raiffeisen Investment Romania’s Managing Director, Ioana Filipescu. There is a decline in the rate and number of deals, Ioana Filipescu said. If we look at the merger & acquisition and private equity markets in 2007, the volume of deals in the first half was double that in the second half.

Raiffeisen Investment Romania had a mandate to sell the Labormed pharmaceutical producer (€123 million) and advised French group Groupama in its acquisition of local Asiban insurer (€350 million).

A representative of a private equity fund with operations on the local market indicated that Romanian assets sold so far have not so far been affected by the subprime crisis, “or else the amounts collected would have been lower,” he said.