Enterprise Investors invests in Novaturas – set to become the leading tour operator in CEE
Warsaw, 29 November, 2007 — Polish Enterprise Fund VI (PEF VI), the private equity fund managed by Enterprise Investors (EI), has invested €40 million in Novaturas, the largest tour operator in the Baltic States, becoming the company’s majority shareholder. The equity and debt financed transaction should allow further rapid expansion of Novaturas both in the Baltics and other CEE countries.
Established in 1999, Novaturas Group is the largest tour operator active in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, offering a range of quality travel packages that is unrivalled in this region. The attractive products, professional service and strong performance have resulted in the Group’s fast growth over the last few years. Consolidated revenues amounted to €65 million in 2006
and are expected to grow to €100 million in 2007. The company plans to serve a record 150,000 passengers this year.
“Novaturas is the most widely recognized tour operator in the Baltics, offering the best quality of service to its customers
and attractive growth prospects to its investors. We believe that Novaturas can become an excellent consolidation platform for the tour operator business in CEE countries and we are eager to implement the development plan together with the company’s management,” said Sebastian Król, a partner at Enterprise Investors.
“When selecting an investor for Novaturas we took many criteria into consideration, the most important being expansion opportunities. We chose Enterprise Investors because this financial institution has the greatest experience in developing businesses in Central and Eastern Europe. We believe that with EI’s support our company will take on new challenges, thereby generating further growth opportunities in Lithuania and the Baltics as well as in the whole CEE region,” commented Vidas Paliunas, General Director of Novaturas.
Enterprise Investors is one of the largest firms managing private equity funds in Central and Eastern Europe. Since 1990
the company has raised six funds totaling €1.6 billion. To date, these funds have invested €1 billion in 106 companies across many sectors, including almost €400 million in the services and consumer goods sectors. EI funds have exited 90 investments with total proceeds of over €1.3 billion.
Enterprise Investors was advised on the Novaturas transaction by Deloitte Lietuva, and Sutkien, Pilkauskas & Partners acted as EI’s legal advisor. Prime Investment was the transaction advisor of Novaturas, while Lideika, Petrauskas, Valiunas ir partneriai LAWIN was their legal advisor.