Stiri	Stiri afaceri	Stiri companii	Evenimente de afaceri

Groupama is content with acquisitions in Romania

­ Even if currently the value of the insurance companies BT, Asiban and OTP Garancia bought last year, dropped a lot, Groupama is content with these acquisitions it made in Romania, the Ziarul financiar reads quoting the Company's head for local operations Denis Rousset as saying on Monday.

Groupama invested about half a billion euros to rank directly third in the Romanian insurance market, and paid over 450 million euros during the last year and a half, to buy insurance companies such as BT, Asiban and OTP Garancia, 350 million euros of it for Asiban alone, in April 2008, a record amount for the insurance market and the biggest transaction last year. Later Groupama invested more 40 million euros, the daily reads on.

'Many told me that if I had waited for more 6 months I would have paid much less for Asiban, as a matter of fact, we never imagined the crisis would occur immediately after the acquisition, but I don't regret I paid that price, because if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't have been here, because others would have bought the Company, instead. If we were to do the acquisition again, we would do it in the same way,' Rousset said.

He said in his opinion, it is better to buy before the crisis than waiting for the prices to go down, because then nothing is for sale even if everything is cheap. An investor who waits for prices to drop, he has no sources to grow his business during the crisis because although the assets get cheap, they are not for sale. In exchange, if you buy before the crisis you can work on the efficiency improvement and the organic growth, and you are in a much better situation, Groupama official said.

The French were not the only ones who offered the record amount of 350 million euros to the four shareholding banks, namely Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), the Romanian Development Bank (BRD), Banca Trnslvsnis and CEC, to buy Asiban, the Ziarul financiar concluded.

 

Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: groupama euros asiban otp cec bcr brd

Articole similare