Adamescu alone again at Astra

Businessman Dan Adamescu, majority shareholder of insurance company Astra, has struck a deal with Austrian-held Uniqa to buy back the 27% stake he sold to Uniqa five years ago. At the time the value of the deal was 10 million euros.
Adamescu currently holds almost 73% in Astra, which at the end of the first quarter was no. 1 on the insurance market. In the wake of the stake purchase from the Austrians, he will become the company’s only significant shareholder. Adamescu is among the few businesspeople who are not selling to foreigners at present, but quite the contrary, are buying stakes they sold in the past.
The buyback is however not part of a strategy, it resulted from the two partners not reaching agreement. Since it entered the Romanian market in 2005, Uniqa has been seeking to become a majority shareholder of Astra, but failed to do so because it did not manage to reach agreement with the Romanian businessman. In the meantime however, Uniqa found its way onto the Romanian market through the purchase of Unita (currently Uniqa Asigur`ri), a top ten insurer.