Romania’s biggest producer of auto batteries, ROMBAT SA has a new majority shareholder: the Dutch company Metair International Holdings Cooperatief U.A., part of the South-African group Metair Investment Limited. According to a press release, negotiations lasted more than a year and ended Wednesday through the signing of the contracts. Metair now controls 99.16 pc of ROMBAT. According to PwC Romania and D&B David and Baias, which provided financial, fiscal and legal consulting services to the buyer, the transaction amounts to nearly EUR 43 M and is among the biggest ever registered in the Romanian automotive sector. Metair already paid in advance EUR 1 M from the total acquisition price, Mediafax reports. Another EUR 37.7 M will be paid until March 22, of which EUR 2 M will be placed in an escrow account. Metair is South Africa’s main producer of car batteries and conducts a programme aimed at developing ‘new-generation’ batteries
