Maspex budgets zl. 220 million for investment spree

Maspex Wadowice Group (GMW), a food sector company, has won exclusive negotiation rights to acquire a stake in one of the largest spaghetti producers, Lublin-based Lubella. "We have until the end of the year to complete due diligence. If we do not find anything which would seriously lower the current or future value of the stake, we will begin negotiations. I think we could close the deal by the end of the year, or in early 2003," said Krzysztof Pawinski, deputy-director of the supervisory board and co-owner of GMW. If an agreement is signed, this will be GMW's fifth acquisition in the food sector over the past three years. Pawinski announced that the company is planning to spend over zl. 220 million on new investments by the end of next year. It has become the nation's largest consolidator in the foodstuffs industry. Over the past five years GMW's turnover rose from zl. 275.2 million to zl. 1 billion. The company began to seriously expand in 1999 with the takeover of juice producer, Tymbark and mineral water company Multi Vita. (Puls Biznesu, p. 4) A.K.