August 25 (SeeNews) - Romanian IT company Bittnet Systems [BSE:BNET] said on Friday its shareholders approved the acquisition of local peer Gecad Net, part of Gecad Ventures, formerly known as Gecad Group, for an undisclosed sum.
The estimated closing date of the transaction is September 30, Bittnet Systems said in filing with the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB.
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In the first stage of the acquisition, Bittnet will take part in the capital increase of Gecad Net and in the second one, it will undertake a private placement of a corporate bond issue to finance the acquisition of all Gecad shares.
Bittnet has had the acquisition in mind since April, when it invited shareholders to vote on buying Gecad Net for a maximum sum of 600,000 euro ($707,334).
Bittnet was founded in 2007 by Mihai and Cristian Logofatu. The company focuses on IT training and delivering end-to-end IT infrastructure services and solutions from companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Dell, VMware and HP, among others.
Bittnet was the first Romanian IT company to be listed on the BVB, in April 2015. Its shares traded 6.44% higher at 1.24 lei as at 1313 CET on Friday on the BVB.
Gecad Net is a company specializing in the marketing and implementation of software applications, providing appropriate licensing options, integrated IT services, audit services and professional IT solutions. It is part of Gecad Ventures, which was established as a software company in 1992 by Romanian entrepreneur Radu Georgescu. The group had its first big hit in 2003, when the RAV antivirus technology it had developed in 1994 was bought by Microsoft.
In October, the group transformed itself into an investment fund and changed its name to Gecad Ventures.
Over the last years, the fund became a major investor in IT startups in Romania, including Vector Watch, Gluru, Sympho Pay, Smart Bill, PawSquad and Coinzone.
($= 0.8483 euro)