Sibiu-based Ambient, a distributor of construction materials, is in advanced negotiations with private equity fund EQT, set up by the Wallenberg family (one of the wealthiest families in Sweden), for the sale of a significant stake, according to market sources.
Negotiations with the private equity fund started six months ago, whilst the sum being circulated on the market stands at around 150 million euros for at least half the company.
The Ambient group, which formed via the merger of 14 companies, is controlled by Sibiu-born businessman Ioan Ciolan, who holds around 75% in the group. The other shareholders are Gheorghe Calburean (majority shareholder of Dafora Medias), with 12%, Dan Olteanu, 5%, Lucian Bezerita, 5%, and Zsolt Berecki, 2%. According to the cited sources, each of the five shareholders will put up for sale half of their stakes.
Contacted by ZF, Ioan Ciolan declined to comment on whether or not he was in negotiations with the EQT fund. However, in an interview given to ZF at the beginning of the month, Ciolan dismissed the idea of selling a stake and said that an internal audit was being conducted "in order to receive financial confirmation that banks, which we could get funding from, require." The group will need funding worth 300 million euros over the next few years, a sum which will cover store network expansion, according to Ciolan. Unfortunately, EQT representatives were unable to respond to ZF's questions by the time this issue was ready for print.
Ambient's retail network numbers 14 big shopping centres and two warehouses in Sibiu and Bucharest, after the company posted a sales increase of 11.5% in the first quarter of the year and reached 42.4 million euros. However, Ambient forecasts as much as a 40% increase in turnover this year, to around 335 million euros.
The entry of Swedish private equity fund EQT, which manages assets worth over 4 billion euros, into the shareholder structure of the Ambient group, would be a first for EQT in Eastern Europe, since the fund's private equity portfolio comprises Northern and Western European companies exclusively. With a focus on the northern part of Europe, and deals that can reach as much as one billion euros, the EQT private equity fund is increasingly interested in "some parts of Eastern Europe," according to information on the company's website.
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