Fota expands across the southern border

Auto-parts distributor Fota has signed an initial agreement to take over the Czech company Autoprima. Fota will acquire 80 percent of the Czech auto-parts distributor and will have the right to buy the remaining 20 percent. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed. "We will finance [the transaction] with the resources from last year's public offer," Fota's president Bohdan Stankiewicz said. The distributor received zł.100 million from the debut in the Q4 of 2006.

Autoprima has 38 outlets in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It has around a five-percent share in its home market and between 10 and 12 percent of the Slovak market. Fota is already present on the Czech market through its subsidiary Fota Czech. It also exports auto parts to Slovakia.

Stankiewicz expects consolidation to take place in the markets of Poland's southern neighbours. "As in Poland, the four or five largest companies will have 80 percent of the market. We want to be one of them," he declared. Autoprima and Fota's Czech branches are to cooperate in the short-term. "In the future we want to merge the companies," Stankiewicz said.

But the company is not resting on its laurels. "We are holding talks with a number of companies which could join our capital group in the next few months," Stankiewicz disclosed. He said that the potential acquisitions include both Polish and foreign firms.