♦ Mid Europa Partners made a similar exit in Poland, and what happened there may be relevant for Romania as well.
The moment is approaching when the private equity fund Mid Europa Partners will exit from the Profi business, a network of over 1,600 stores, say market sources. The fund bought the local retailer about six and a half years ago, paying 533 million euros.
Now, in case of a sale, Mid Europa Partners has two solutions – to sell the business to a strategic investor or to a financial one. A strategist buys with the idea of staying in business for the long term, while a fund will look for a subsequent sale solution.
As for Profi, the company is not in its first transaction, so a new fund should see a profitable solution in the next 4-6 years. To understand what could happen to Profi, ZF analyzed a similar situation. More precisely, Mid Europa Partners made a similar exit in Poland – the Zabka network. The company was founded in 1998 by a Polish entrepreneur. In 2007, the business was taken over by the Penta Investment fund, which sold it four years later to Mid Europa Partners. In 2017, in a new transaction, the buyer was another fund – CVC Capital Partners.
About six years have passed since this last agreement, which brought the third fund into the Zabka business, so a new sale is being circulated. The surprise this time is the potential buyer – the Polish state.
