After Credisson, Andronescu eyes other ventures

Florin Andronescu, chairman of consumer lending company Credisson International and one of its former owners, is considering investing some of the money obtained from selling its stake in the company into three new niche businesses.

Andronescu, who founded retailer Flanco and then Credisson, is one of the best-known Romanian entrepreneurs.

His 20% stake in Credisson will see him get about 9.4 million euros from French company Cetelem. The French have recently bought Credisson International in a 47 million-euro deal, with the bulk of the money going to Swedish investment fund Oresa Ventures, which owned 80% in the consumer lending company.

“I want to invest part of the money from the sale of Credisson in fields I am familiar with, such as financial intermediation services or retail. I”ve thought of three niche businesses, two of them in financial services”, Florin Andronescu told Ziarul Financiar, choosing not to speak about the third business he is going to launch, for the time being.

Asked about his potential partners in the new financial services businesses, Andronescu said he preferred old partners, including investment funds Oresa Ventures and Polish Enterprise Investors IV (which was close to entering the Credisson business last year).

Credisson was launched about three years ago by Swedish investment fund Oresa Ventures and by Dan Andronescu, by spinning off the consumer lending operations from Flanco”s portfolio.

The company developed as the first specialised consumer finance player on a market dominated by banks, and once the French of Cetelem arrived this spring, the objective is to gain the first position in the following period.

Credisson saw solid growth in 2003, when consumption soared but, in the wake of new restrictions imposed by the National Bank of Romania, the market slid in the first half of last year.

Investment funds Polish Enterprise Investors IV and DBG Eastern Europe started talks to enter Flanco and Credisson as early as 2003.

The Polish investment fund was very close to entering the Credisson business, but the first strategic investors interested in taking over the company had already emerged. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro