Warburg Pincus sells Inea to Macquarie

The deal ends a four-year holding period after Warburg acquired a strategic minority stake in the company in April 2013 and subsequently increased its stake to 72%.

Warburg Pincus had originally expected a valuation of around PLN 1.5bn, but was under pressure to come down from this figure in mid-November, according to unquote" sister publication Mergermarket.

Inea generated sales of PLN 281m in 2016 with an EBITDA margin just under 30%, according to publicly available documents. 

The divestment was made from the Warburg Pincus Private Equity XI fund, which held its interim close in May 2012 at €3.4bn.

Under the GP's ownership, Inea expanded its network and completed add-on acquisitions in efforts to consolidate the sector.

In addition to expanding its product portfolio and opening a new data centre in Wysogotowo, the company also became a name sponsor for the Lech Poznan stadium – now called Inea Stadion – and launched the stadium's television channel Lech TV.

According to Warburg, the company managed to double its EBITDA during the period.

Company
Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Poznan, Poland, Inea is a cable operator in western Poland. It offers telecommunications services to residential and business customers, including cable TV, broadband, and fixed-line and mobile telephone networks. It employs 800 people.

People
Warburg Pincus – Adarsh Sarma (managing director).
Inea – Janusz Kosinski (co-founder).

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