Page 24 - bneMagazine March 2023 oil discount

24 I Companies & Markets bne March 2023
Poland was once again the top M&A market this year with 250 deals (down 7%) but with a value of €15.97bn, up by
a third. Croatia was second, with €3.16bn in deals, up 69%, with deal numbers rising 16% to a new peak of 80. Romania was the third strongest market, with 234 deals, up 20%, with a value of €2.9bn, up by a fifth.
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The biggest deals after the PKN Orlen-PGNiG merger were Czech property group CPI’s €1.8bn acquisition of a 25% stake in Austria’s Immofinanz, and Polish energy group PGE’s €1.3bn acquisition of PKP Energetyka.
The number of listings plunged from 60 to just 13, with IPO values falling from €8.6bn to just €40mn, with the largest listing – Telematic Interactive Bulgaria on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange – at only €8.2mn.
The report estimates that there are now an estimated 34 unicorns in the region, up from just six in 2015.
Private equity deal volumes edged up 32 to a new five-year high of 289. In contrast, deal values were at their lowest level in five years, at €9.99bn, down from €13bn in 2021. Private equity investors were involved in half the top 10 deals.
US investors were once again the most active foreign investor from outside the region, as the number of US deals rose from 103 in 2021 to 126. The US was also the leading source of foreign investment, with €3.49bn of deals, though that was down from the previous year’s high of €8.67bn.
This year the CMS annual M&A report did not include Russia or Turkey.
Bulgaria abandons January 2024
euro adoption target
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Kreso Beljak, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, has admitted he now crosses the border into neighbouring Slovenia to do his shopping to avoid “shameful” price rises following Croatia’s adoption of the euro.
Many Croatians complain that retailers are rounding up prices in breach of the guidelines issued by the central bank after the switch to the euro on January 1. Price increases were seen in earlier entrants to the eurozone too, but in Croatia they follow months of steep inflation.
The government has said that it will introduce measures to stop the unreasonable price hikes, including blacklisting retailers who don’t follow the rules.
Beljak said the price hikes were not surprising. "Prices of items are determined by the market, and I am not surprised that they have risen. Obviously, it is determined by the demand.
It is a simple rule of the market economy – the higher the
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demand for something is, the higher the price for it would be," Beljak said in an interview with N1.
However, he added that the differences in prices of goods between Croatia and neighbouring Slovenia are “shameful” for his country. "For me or the people in Samobor [a small town between Zagreb and the Slovenian border] there is no difference whether we go to Zagreb or Slovenia to do our shopping [in terms of distance]. In Slovenia, instead of €100, I spent 70. My wife was on the phone back in Samobor comparing the prices. It is shameful,'' Beljak said.
He argued that it was not the government’s job to intervene on the market in the current situation as the market would self- regulate based on demand.
"The market forms the prices, not the state. The state is there
to ensure a higher salary, to make so people able to buy more in such cases. The state needs to reduce the taxes and levies so that net wages rise, increasing the purchasing power of people," Beljak said.