Page 22 - bne magazine February 2022_20220208

22 I Companies & Markets bne February 2022
Minister Nicolae Ciuca, the fiscal policy remains unclear. On the upside, the Social Democrats toned down calls to renegotiate the Recovery and Resilience Facility with the European Union.
The good news related to market indices provider FTSE Russel including two more Romanian companies in its indices didn’t help the market as a whole, despite the visible positive impact on the particular shares, One United (ONE) real estate group and waterways transport company Transport Trade Services (TTS). The shares of Romanian developer and investor One United surged by over 20% in less than a week, after FTSE Russell decided to include them in its FTSE Global All Cap index.
Other good news was generated by the listing of new companies on the BVB, such as transport and distribution company Aquila, which started trading on the BVB at the end of November after
Romanian antivirus company Bitdefender prepares $2bn IPO
in the US
bne IntelliNews
Romanian IT security solutions producer Bitdefender, best known for its antivirus software, has hired investment banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley
to help it with the launch of an IPO on the US market, Profit.ro reported.
The IPO would envisage a valuation of nearly $2bn for the Romanian company, according to sources familiar with the deal quoted by Ziarul Financiar daily. A successful listing would thus result in a second Romanian unicorn, after UiPath.
The procedures were reportedly launched in November.
The Romanian company has also decided that Bitdefender Free, one of the most popular free security solutions for Windows, will be permanently discontinued starting December 31. The mobile version operating systems Android and iOS are not subject to this decision.
In December 2017, the Vitruvian Partners investment fund bought a share of around 30% of Bitdefender. The company was then valued at over $600mn.
In the spring of 2019, Bitdefender appointed John Stynes,
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completing the biggest IPO of an entrepreneurial company on the Romanian stock exchange (€74mn).
The shares of the company started trading on the BVB on November 29 very close to the price of RON5.50 per share set in the IPO. Towards the end of the trading day, the price eased to RON5.46, consistent with a market capitalisation of nearly RON1.1bn (€220mn).
“Through the success of the primary public offering of Aquila, a market leader in the segment of distribution of consumer goods, we hope to raise awareness of other local entrepreneurs on the alternative of financing and developing their own businesses with the support of the local capital market,” said Olimpiu Blajut, deputy CEO of Swiss Capital, the brokerage house that intermediated the IPO and listed Aquila’s shares.
an Irish executive with nearly two decades of experience in listed technology companies, as CFO. At that time, the Romanian company was pondering listing its shares on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB).
Bitdefender is a global computer security and antivirus software company, operating globally, which provides solutions to protect against cyber threats for over 500mn users in over 170 countries.
Founded in 2001 by Florin and Mariuca Talpes, the company is headquartered in Bucharest and has offices in the US, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates.
“The IPO would envisage a valuation of nearly $2bn for the Romanian company”