Key Takeaways
- Sector: Manufacturing.
- Geography: Romania.
Analysis
INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund has completed the acquisition of Romanian tissue paper producer Pehart Group from Abris Capital Partners. The deal, finalized on July 11, was backed by over €150 million in financing from IFC, Banca Transilvania, and ING Bank Romania, including a significant sustainability-linked tranche.
Founded nearly two centuries ago, Pehart is one of Southeast Europe’s largest paper product manufacturers, with revenues of €165 million in 2024. It operates leading consumer brands including Pufina, Alint, and Altessa, and recently launched SOVIO, targeting the Away-from-Home market. The company employs more than 550 people and continues to expand across CEE.
Under Abris Capital, Pehart invested in production upgrades and cross-border distribution capabilities. The exit marks a full lifecycle for Abris’s value-creation strategy, culminating in a platform that INVL now aims to scale further through capex and bolt-on acquisitions.
Vytautas Plunksnis, Partner at INVL, said: “We are proud to support Pehart’s management and see significant runway for both organic growth and consolidation.” Deimantė Korsakaitė added that the transaction caps off INVL Baltic’s 10-investment portfolio and supports the ramp-up of its €305 million successor fund.
The transaction echoes a string of high-profile industrial and manufacturing deals across Central and Eastern Europe. In 2024, CEE Equity Partners sold Polish packaging manufacturer Velpa to VPK Group, leveraging demand for sustainable consumer packaging. That same year, Resource Partners sold Delicpol, a leading Polish biscuit maker, to Dr Gerard in a carve-out funded by regional credit providers.
In Romania, BlackPeak Capital invested in Econosto, a fast-growing industrial parts distributor, while Accel-KKR backed the expansion of Kepler Management Systems, a regional ERP software vendor serving manufacturers across the Balkans.
The Pehart deal also highlights the growing role of blended finance in the region. IFC emphasized its sustainability-linked loan structure, which aligns performance metrics with ESG goals in water use and energy efficiency. Executives at ING and Banca Transilvania pointed to strategic synergies between infrastructure modernization and regional capital deployment.
As consumer infrastructure in CEE scales to meet EU standards and export capacity, private equity continues to play a catalytic role in bringing capital, ESG frameworks, and consolidation know-how to long-established industrial platforms like Pehart.