Transactions often make the front-page headlines of newspapers throughout the entire world and ZIARUL FINANCIAR has always tried to be the first to break the news.
We first did it in 2005 when we published Top Tranzactii (Top Transactions). We then wanted to see which entrepreneurs sold their businesses a year before the accession to the European Union, resulting in a second edition.
2006 was a busy year in terms of mergers and acquisitions on the Romanian market. However it is only now, after all the information is gathered together in a single paper, that one can really see how dynamic the M&A segment was.
"I expect the M&A area to become more and more dynamic on the domestic market," stated Misu Negritoiu, chief executive of ING Bank Romania, who attended the Top Tranzactii launch event organised by ING and ZIARUL FINANCIAR.
From the first contact between the parties until the actual signing of the deal, we wanted to tell the story beyond what was publicly released. The hundreds of hours of negotiations with lawyers, strategists and top managers, the dozens of offers made, backstage clashes, are all included in Top Tranzactii.
What makes some people sell and others buy? Who gives them advice? How is the value of a company set? The "Top Tranzactii" yearbook of ZF attempted to answer these questions, interviewing the protagonists of the transactions, the consultants and the lawyers.
We learnt that the sale of a business is a business in itself, with its own mechanisms. Therefore, those who build a business do not always know how to get the best prices. We have discovered that an audit from a prestigious firm could boost the value of a business by tens of percentage points.
We will present around 70 transactions, at a frequency of more than one a week, without taking into account deals below 20 million euros.
Real estate was the hottest industry, where projects moved from one investor to another, doubling in price within a few years. In particular, the case of City Mall, which experienced three changes of ownership within two years. Moreover, deals in the range of hundreds of millions of euros are conducted for projects in the blueprint stages, such as with the two Polus Centers in Cluj and Constanta.
The year 2006 also marked the floatation of the first Romanian pharmaceutical company on a foreign stock exchange. A&D Pharma has been trading on the London Stock Exchange since October 2006.
"I'm inviting more and more companies on the local Stock Exchange. It's a long way from a loan to an initial public offering," Misu Negritoiu said.
The yearbook also includes a perspective on the most interesting businesses that can be acquisition targets in 2007. Despite appearances, entire sectors of the economy are dominated by domestic capital, such as food products, courier services, and software development. Even the insurance sector has large Romanian controlled companies, which are already in sales talks.
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