$234 million in 30 mergers and acquisitions

The number of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Romania amounted to 30 last year, compared with 26 in 2001, yet the estimated value of the market dropped 10% over against the previous year, according to “Central & Eastern European Mergers & Acquisitions Survey 2002” by PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting firm.
“The total estimated market value of transactions completed (in Romania) stood at $234 million in 2002, resulting in an average disclosed deal value of around $8 million, below the last year’s average of $10 million,” the survey explains.#leadend#
“The domestic deals proportion increased to 33%, as compared to last year’s 31%, while the foreign investors were involved in 67% of the total transactions, way above the average of the region, which can explain the dependence of the Romanian market on the downward trends of the international mergers and acquisitions market, ” said Emilian Radu, Corporate Finance Leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania.
He specified the mergers and acquisitions market had declined not only in Romania, but also in other countries in the region. The PricewaterhouseCoopers report shows the number of such deals increased by 15% in the Central and Eastern Europe last year, while the estimated market value kept at approximately the same level as in 2001. All this given the decline in the merger and acquisitions business worldwide, yet “the regional players were quite active in 2002, though,” as pointed out by Margaret Dezse, Corporate Finance Leader for the Central and Eastern Europe.
The market behaved differently in the countries covered by the survey. “The number and the value of the transactions significantly went up in Russia and Poland, while other countries witnessed a drop in both number and value,” Dezse said, explaining this phenomenon through the maturity gap between the various markets in the area. “Countries with mature economies, like Hungary, have largely kept up with the downward trend on the international market,” the PwC official added.
If taking the whole region into account, the average value per transaction fell from $24 million in 2001 to $19 million in 2002, while the weight of the transactions involving domestic investors increased to 63%.
The PwC survey analyses the mergers and acquisitions market in nine countries, seven of which were also included in the 2001 report (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia) and were joined by Slovenia and Croatia in 2002. The report shows there were 1,070 transactions completed in the private sector in the nine countries (privatisations not counted), which totalled $17.7bn.