Euroventures Hungary III reaches first close at E31m

Investors in the fund include ABN AMRO, the European Investment Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a Hungarian pension fund managed by Credit Suisse Asset Management. The fund will invest in the expansion, development, growth or buy-out of businesses in Hungary and other Central European countries.

'We are pleased to have been part of the process of facilitating Hungarian institutional investment in Hungarian private equity, an asset class which offers diversification for fund managers and is widely held by long-term institutional investors in Western Europe,' said Andras Geszti, Euroventures' managing director.

'Although the investing climate and the current preference for large buy-out transactions has made fund raising extremely difficult for Central European funds, we are pleased that we have been able to convince investors that growth and EU convergence may offer attractive private equity returns, albeit with an earlier-stage focus that the more mature markets of Western Europe,' added Thomas Howels, Euroventures director.

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