Asseco South Eastern Europe, part of the Polish group, plans to purchase four new companies in the region, for which it allocated a budget of €28.5 million to be spent within two years, according to company officials.

“The acquisitions in Romania depend largely on the opportunities that will appear on the market. We can even spend most of this budget in Romania,” said Piotr Jelenski, Chief Executive Officer of Asseco SEE, adding that a key condition for initiating the acquisition process depends on the profitability of the targeted enterprises. “Companies must have a net profit between €1-4 million, know-how in the software sector, and be capable of supporting a growth process in the coming years. Also, we are looking for managers who would remain after the acquisition,” Jelenski added.

The Polish company acquired 70 percent of the shares of Romanian Fiba Software and Net Consulting companies in May 2007, in a transaction worth a total €13.5 million. It went on to purchase the remaining share packages in a stock exchange process, and the founders of the two Romanian companies became shareholders of the Polish group. Net Consulting and Fiba Software will merge by the end of this year, following a restructuring process initiated by Asseco SEE.

Asseco SEE’s sales in Romania are estimated by company officials to amount to €40 million by year-end, while the net profit is expected to reach €3 mln. In the first six months, the group’s operations in Romania generated €21.2 mln, the equivalent of 42 percent of the software provider’s revenues in Southeastern Europe.

The net profit amounted to €1.7 mln in the first half of this year on the local market, where public sector services generated some €8.3 mln. The Romanian business makes up approximately five percent of the net sales posted by the entire group, according to Asseco officials.