After years of rapid growth in mergers and acquisitions activity, central and eastern Europe has this year finally made the investment bankers’ top table with a full-blown multibillion dollar contested bid in the form of Austria’s OMV’s approach to Mol, the dominant Hungarian energy company.
The $16bn proposed deal is important to both companies in political, financial and industrial terms. Its fate will determine the shape of the oil and gas industry in the region for years to come, not least because both groups already possess sizeable investments in neighbouring countries, with Mol active in Slovakia and Croatia, and OMV controlling Petrom, the former state-owned refinery in Romania.
