November 28 (SeeNews) - A new series of corporate bonds issued by Romanian IT group Bittnet Systems [BSE:BNET] was admitted to trading on the main market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) on Wednesday, the bourse said.
The bond issue [BNET23], Bittnet's third trading on the BVB, is worth a total of 4.7 million lei ($1.14 million/1.09 million euro), the BVB said in a press release.
The funds will be used chiefly to finance the acquisition of two companies.
"BNET23 bonds, listed starting today, allowed us to finance the acquisition of stakes in Elian as well as Equatorial and we are confident that the two newly integrated companies will play a crucial role in attaining the target we have set for the Group - 100 million lei in revenues by 2020," Bittnet CEO Mihai Logofatu said.
"Bittnet is one of the listed companies which has extensively used the financing sources offered by the capital market in order to accelerate its development. After the first trading day, on April 15, 2015, the capitalization of the campany was almost 8 million lei, and in less than four years, by using the financial instruments available in the capital market, the value of the company multiplied six times and exceed 50 million lei," BVB President of Board of Governors Lucian Anghel said.
In October, Bittnet signed an investment deal in the form of a business transfer agreement with local peer Crescendo International for 10.9 million lei.
Bittnet's first-half net profit doubled on the year to 411,000 lei due to improved performance in IT integration and cloud, and in IT training. Its consolidated revenues reached 23 million lei in first half of 2018, an increase of 2% year-on-year. EBITDA also doubled year-on-year, reaching 1.4 million lei.
In August, Bittnet signed a contract to buy a 25% stake in game-based learning local firm Equatorial Gaming, using the proceeds of a private placement of corporate bonds. The placement was successfully closed at the beginning of July, raising 4.7 million lei.
A month earlier Bittnet signed an agreement for the acqusition of a controlling stake in IT company Elian Solutions. In the third quarter of 2017, Bittnet acquired GECAD NET, an IT services integrator, which is now present on the Romanian market under the dendrio brand.
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.
It was the first Romanian IT company to be listed on the Alternative Trading System (AeRO) of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), in April 2015.
Shares of Bittnet traded flat at 1.0550 lei as at 1400 CET on Wednesday on the BVB.
(1 euro=4.6580 lei)