Ali Artunkal, managing partner of ARGUS, said: “The deal pipeline remains strong in Central and Eastern Europe with an excellent investment and exit environment as a result of strong economic growth, increased foreign direct investment and the quality of local management teams. Institutional investors are increasingly recognising the attractive investment returns that can be generated from private equity investment in the region, evidenced by the investor appetite for ARGUS’s second fund.”
The fund has already made its first investment, a Polish manufacturer of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) called
ARGUS Capital Partners I raised a little over €130m in 1999. It made its third exit in September 2006 with the sale of Svoboda Press the largest commercial printer in the Czech Republic, to EuroDruck Service for an undisclosed sum. This transaction represented an IRR of 25% and a money multiple of 3.9x.