The acquisition was brokered by the Liberty Investment Holding fund, and the seller was the Eurooil company, subsidiary of RAK Investment. According to Gugenidze, the bank currently has a market share of 3.4 percent.
“We target a market share of 7-8 percent, as the maximum we can reach is 10 percent. I am certain that we will triple our investment in a few years,” said Georgia’s former Prime Minister yesterday, who will head the financial institution. Through the same investment fund, Patriciu and Gugenidze plan to invest hundreds of millions of euro in financial services in other 20-25 countries with liberal and ultraliberal governing in Eastern Europe, Africa, North and South America, but not in Romania. “We will invest in Romania only when structural reforms are made here,” Gugenidze said.
The investment fund is to acquire a 60 percent share package of the Fairwind Securities brokerage firm in Romania, controlled by Patriciu, which, according to the businessman, “has synergies with the Georgian bank.”
