July 4 (SeeNews) - Romania's anti-trust body said on Monday it has approved Swedish investment fund Oresa's takeover of Romanian mineral water bottling and distributing company La Fantana Group from Polish investment fund Innova Capital.
The transaction does not raise concerns regarding its compatibility with a normal competition environment, the competition council said in a press release.
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The transaction was first announced in April.
La Fantana was founded by Oresa and Romanian entrepreneur Cristian Amza in 2004. In 2007, Innova Capital bought a majority stake in the company.
In the same year, La Fantana took over peer Aqua Regis from RTC Holding Group and in September 2010, it bought Rokor Ecostyle, the exclusive importer and distributor in Romania of Waterpia purifiers.
La Fantana currently serves Romanian and Serbian markets. In Serbia, it has a water production and bottling factory located in Mitrovo Polje.
In 2015 the La Fantana Group posted consolidated revenues of over 42 million euro ($47.2 million) and served more than 50,000 customers.
Swedish investment fund Oresa is present in Central and Eastern Europe through private equity investments since 1995. Its current core market is Romania, where it hold majority or significant stakes in a broad portfolio of companies such as loans broker Kiwi Finance,office stationery maker RTC, precast manufacturer Somao, paints maker Fabryo and IT solutions supplier RBC.
Over the last last five years, the company has invested 100 million euro in equity in Romania.
(1 euro = 4.5164 Romanian lei)