Deloitte&Touche Romania, the branch of one of the “Big Five” from the global market of professional services, on March 15 announced the merger by absorption with DZ Finance.
The transaction aims at improving the still weak position of Deloitte&Touche on the market of financial consulting providers.
The value of the transaction is estimated to stand between 1.5 and 2.5 million dollars. “The option for DZ Finance was backed by three reasons: the company’s 10-year experience in financial services, the active presence on the Romanian market and the acquaintance with most Deloitte&Touche clients,” Paul-Andre Michaud, Deloitte&Touche Romania president, maintained. On the other hand, the personality of Nicolas Duiliu Zamfiresco, DZ Finance founder, counted a lot.
The 15 experts of DZ Finance bring 19 files of companies prepared for privatisation to Deloitte&Touche portfolio, which also includes 23 ongoing files.
“We realised that we were not been strong enough in the field of financial consulting services, we had a small team and whereby we were losing business opportunities,” Michaud says.
Though DZ Finance was not highly publicised, the company dealt with over 40 large transactions in Romania, whose value amounted at more than 500 million dollars.
The company was established in 1993 by Nicolas Duiliu Zamfiresco, a descendant of the novelist Duiliu Zamfirescu, which has a double citizenship: Romanian and French.
DZ Finance business started in 1992-1993, when the company provided assistance to Tarom for purchasing two Airbus A 310-300 aircraft worth 117 million dollars. The aircraft business also continued in 1998-1999, when Tarom purchased four ATR-42 aircraft.
Another important client of DZ Finance was the French construction materials group Lafarge, which took over Romcim, the most important Romanian cement manufacturer in 1997. The value of the transaction was 201 million dollars, besides the 164 million dollars standing for the investment programme.
Among DZ finance clients there are other large companies, such as the Romanian Bank for Development (BRD), Faur, MobilRom, British American Tobacco, Romanian Reconstruction Capital and Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux.