EBRD Provides 22 Mln Euro to Polish IT Firm Asseco for Expansion in SEE

“The EBRD is making an equity investment of 15 million euro, and will provide a 7.0 million euro loan to Asseco Southern Eastern Europe (ASEE), to support the company’s development and acquisition of new software development companies in the Balkans and Turkey,” the EBRD said in a statement.

Owned by Asseco Poland, ASEE provides various information technology services for the banking, public and telecom administration sector in Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, operating through its subsidiaries in these countries.

“The company is pursuing further expansion and has identified new software development companies as potential acquisition targets,” the EBRD said in the statement.

“The EBRD is pleased to support the development of information technology market in southeast Europe,” the EBRD Business Group Director for Central Europe, Western Balkans, Turkey and Telecommunications, Peter Reiniger, was quoted as saying in the statement.

“This project will help Asseco to improve further its competitiveness in the region through a diversified portfolio of products and services, while contributing to cross-border transfer of IT skills among company’s subsidiaries,” he added.

To date the EBRD has invested over 2.5 billion euro in a range of ITC projects across its countries of operation.

There are plans for a total of four acquisitions in SEE, including one each in Croatia and Romania, Croatian online news outlet Poslovni Dnevnik (www.poslovni.hr) reported earlier this month, quoting Drazen Pehar, the president of Logos, a Zagreb-based IT company acquired by Asseco last year. He added that the company has not decided yet on the other two acquisition targets.

($=0.7085 euro)