In the 2/2013 issue of Polish edition of „Forbes” magazine in the article “Glass half full” journalists described the situation on the Polish M&A market in 2012.

Marek Dojnow, Managing Partner at FIDEA, was asked to comment on this topic: „The majority of closed transactions were acquisitions back from 2011 or from the beginning of 2012; there was a lack of true market transactions, some of them were forced by sellers’ problems.”  Looking at the largest transactions closed in 2012, the ones involving Warta, Kredyt Bank, Polbank EFG or select Polish assets of DnB Nord happened due to previous owners’ problems. Three other transactions from this list, i.e. Elektrownia Rybnik, Mondi Packaging Paper Świecie and BGŻ S.A., were the cases where existing significant shareholders increased their ownership in these companies – therefore these were not true market transactions.

Another transaction mentioned in the article was the acquisition of Eko Holding retail chain by Advent International. Advent outbid another financial investor, Mid Europa Partners, offering a huge premium over the company’s share price in the tender offer on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Marek Dojnow also commented on this transaction:

This shows how much cash private equity funds have and how difficult it is to find attractive assets. Investors have recently had similar fights over health care companies.

– explains Marek Dojnow.

The whole content of the article is available on Forbes website.