Portuguese investment bank chooses Poland as CEE base

The new company which is called Concordia Espirito Santo Investmento (CESI) and which will specialize in providing investment advisory services, was formed in cooperation with Concordia. "As until now we have been investing in Central Europe through our company in London, but we wanted to be here. We considered opening a company in the Czech Republic, Hungary or Poland. We finally chose Poland as this is the most important market for our clients," said Jose Maria Espirito Santo Ricardi, the president of BESI. He went on to explain that he has selected Concordia as his partner because of its similar profile, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, as well as privatization processes. "Our aim is to attract large investors from Portugal and Spain. Many of them are greatly interested in Poland. We are not interested in privatization, because most large projects have already been completed," said Jose Maria Espirito Santo Ricardi. (Puls Biznesu, p. 10) A.K.