Accession Mezzanine Capital seeks e150m

Accession Mezzanine Capital is the e150 million fund currently being raised by Mezzanine Management for investment in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic and Slovenia. The fund’s name reflects the fact that most of these countries will be among the first wave of central European countries to join the European Union.

Czech Republic, which applied in 1996, Hungary (1994), Poland (1994) and Slovenia (1996) will all go in the first wave and the Slovak Republic, which applied in 1995, is part of the second wave. Interest, generally, in this region is fuelled in part by the introduction of the euro and what that means in terms of sourcing the cheaper labour found in these countries relative to the UK and continental Europe.

Mezzanine Management has recruited a new team to run the fund. Franz Hoerhager, who is based in Vienna, runs the team. Hoerhager has had a working relationship with Mezzanine Management since the inception of its second fund, International Mezzanine Investment. Reporting to Hoerhager are Anna Connolly and Przemek Szczepanski in Warsaw. They came loose from Pioneer Investment after a change of strategy there. Tamas Simonyi,

who is a partner with KPMG corporate finance, will be working part time on the fund on a consultancy basis from his base in Budapest and Benjamin Edwards is the London-based contact. Additional senior hires look likely once the fund has achieved first closing.