The China-CEE Investment Co-operation Fund II announces first closure with commitments of USD 800 million

CEE Equity Partners Limited, the investment advisor to the China-CEE Investment Co-operation Funds I & II (the Funds), today announced the first closing of Fund II, and secured commitments of USD 800 million. A final total capital commitment of USD 1 billion is targeted for 2018. The company, which has a Bucharest office, deepened its regional coverage with new hires and a new office in Prague.

CEE Equity Partners continues to strengthen its regional coverage with four new investment professionals and a new office in Prague. This brings the CEE Equity team to 28 investment professionals across five offices in Bucharest, Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and Zagreb.

CEE Equity Partners has since 2014 overseen 16 transactions by Fund I in five countries totaling over USD 500 million. Fund I focuses chiefly on four sectors: specialised manufacturing, infrastructure, energy and telecommunications. This is reflected in its current portfolio, which includes solar PV energy company Energy 21 in the Czech Republic, several energy sector investments in Poland, telecommunication companies in Poland and Hungary, the Polish biotech drug developer, Bioton, Bulgarian company Walltopia, the market leader in climbing wall design and production, Slovenia’s Javna Razsvetljava, an expert in public lighting and signaling solutions, and Budapest Metropolitan University (MetU), the largest private university in Hungary.

In addition to the four sectors, Fund II expanded its investment focus to also consider investment opportunities in other areas, such as healthcare, tourism, education and agriculture.

“CEE Equity Partners’ regional and sectoral expertise allows us to identify well-managed, cash-flow generative and asset backed companies poised for growth”, said Octavian Vidu, Investment Director for Romania.

“The new USD 800 million capital secured for the China-CEE Fund II demonstrates investors’ commitment to our strategy and approach,” he added. “We see tremendous opportunities in Romania and across the region, where management teams of high quality companies seek investors that can help with their development. We are currently looking at a number of Romanian opportunities in the above mentioned sectors, and with the second-phase investment capital we look forward to exploring many additional opportunities. We have identified interesting opportunities in the agricultural, transport, energy and manufacturing sectors. The transport sector and especially the multimodal terminals for containerized and bulk shipping suffer from lack of investment and are under increasing pressure both from the West and from the East. We believe that we are prepared to invest in the following 12 months and to create growth together with our partners, the Romanian businessmen.”