Dufa sells offices for 6m euros

Dufa Romania, a varnish and dye producer and one of the top-three players on the market, recently sold the class A office building it owned in the north of the capital in a deal put at 6.5 million euros, sources close to the deal told Ziarul Financiar.

The money will be paid to Dufa Romania, a company recently acquired by US investment fund Advent.

The buyers were a group of Irish investors, the same sources added.

Dufa officials had made no comment by the time this article went to press.

The Irish investors that recently entered the Romanian real estate market include Ballymore Properties, a business led by Sean Mulryan. Ballymore recently bought the Praktiker Brasov project and is also tapping the market in Bucharest for new acquisitions. According to real estate sources, however, Ballymore Properties had no involvement in this transaction.

The negotiations for the sale of the building were at an advanced stage at the time Advent was in talks for the acquisition of Dufa Romania. Last month, Advent signed an agreement with the company owners, the German group Meffert AG and the Romanian investors Marius Ivan (general manager at Henkel Bautechnick Romania) and Liviu Stan (formerly the manager of Dufa), for the takeover of Dufa for 17-18 million euros. As well as the core business of varnish and dye production, the value of the deal also includes dividends from the 2004 financial year.

Advent chose at the time not to take over the class A office building owned by Dufa, as well as its 90% participation in Global Real Invest, a joint venture between Dufa and the German group Interpares Mobau Interbaustoff for the development of a network of construction supplies distribution centres. Last year Dufa turned over close to 15 million euros.

Dufa Romania was launched in 1997 by Meffert AG, which entered a joint venture with a group of Romanian investors for dye and varnish import and distribution activities. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro