UTI has budgeted EUR20 million to buy other companies in Romania and the region, Tiberiu Urdareanu, the group’s owner, told MEDIAFAX. UTI also plans to attract EUR30 million in banking loans for the same purpose.
Last year, UTI bought 70% of the stock of Romanian company Softrust Vision Analytics, which operates in the field of video recording, storage and analysis.
“We are in advanced negotiations with two other Romanian firms and in the early stages of acquisitions in states which UTI has entered recently, especially Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy,” Urdareanu said.
In 2011, the UTI group’s construction subsidiaries posted the highest growth (EUR51 million from EUR32 million in 2010), thanks to major projects like the National Arena stadium in Bucharest, the modernization of Cluj-Napoca’s wastewater treatment plant, and work on the Henri Coanda and Aurel Vlaicu airports.
The group opened two new offices in 2011, in Poland and Azerbaijan. UTI won two auctions for traffic management in Poland, one last year, worth EUR1.8 million, the other in March this year, for EUR5 million. In Albania, the group has signed two contracts for IT services.
“In 2011, our revenue from contracts in Bulgaria, Albania, Poland, the United States and Ukraine was EUR6.3 million, 4% of the group’s total revenue,” said Urdareanu. “For 2012, we estimate turnover from foreign operations of EUR10 million, in a worst case scenario,” he added.
The group posted turnover of EUR157.4 million last year and EBITDA of EUR21.7 million. Compared with 2010, the turnover was 6.7% lower, because of the continued economic crisis, Urdareanu explains.
The UTI group’s stock is owned by TIU Holdings (57.06%), PineBridge Investments (27.02%), Fundatia UTI (9.92%) and other shareholders (6%).