Advent opens in Prague

Buyouts giant Advent International has installed Chris Mruck, a partner who has been with the firm since 1997, as head of the firm’s new Prague office to cover the Czech and Slovak Republics. The addition of the new team – which also includes Michal Aron, who joined Advent in January 2006, and Milan Kulich, who will join the firm this summer – increases the firm’s presence in Central and Eastern Europe where it already has offices in Warsaw, covering Poland and the Baltic States, and in Bucharest, which covers Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

Prior to joined Advent, Mruck spend ten years as head of the EBRD’s Czech office and has led or been closely involved in a number of Advent’s most high-profile Central European investments, including Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), Czech fleetcard company, CCS, and Brewery Holdings in Romania. Aron joined Advent from Ticketpro, a Central European ticketing company, where he was responsible for business development and M&A activities. Before that, he worked for Allianz Specialised Investments and Baring Communications Equity Emerging Europe focusing on private equity investments in Central and Eastern Europe. Kulich joins from Deloitte Central Europe where he was assistant director, working on M&A and restructurings in Central European unquoted companies.