- dendrio, a Bittnet company, announces joining forces with CRESCENDO International SRL, a leading IT&C company form Romania with 25 years of experience
- This decision is in line with the Group’s strategy to consolidate the local IT market and expand Bittnet Group’s reach abroad in order to become a regional player on the European IT&C market
- By the end of 2019, the resulting company targets revenues of over 100 million lei
Bittnet (BNET) announces that it has successfully closed negotiations for consolidation of the IT&C integration activities of dendrio with the IT&C integration activites of CRESCENDO International SRL, a company with 25 years of experience in Romania and foreign markets. As part of the agreement, the companies will join forces under dendrio brand, in order to create a flagship IT&C integrator with regional reach.
CRESCENDO was established in 1993 and since 1999, is led by Marius Tulea, CEO as well as significant shareholder. The company is specialized in providing personalized IT&C applications, solutions as well as services. In 2017, the company recorded revenues of RON 79,2 million (an increase of 56% compared to result from 2016) and a net profit of RON 4,4 million (+140% compared to 2016). With 25 years of experience, CRESCENDO has more then 60 employees, 200 active clients and over 2,000 projects successfully implemented in Romania and abroad.
“We are proud to announce this deal since we believe it is a game changer for all our shareholders as well as the Romanian IT market as a whole. Since listing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, we have always strived to develop and grow our business year-by-year. We identified several years ago that consolidation in the IT&C market will be one of the best ways to build our position locally and internationally. We believe that this deal will have positive consequences that will redefine our status of a listed company as it will contribute significantly to our goal of building a regional IT player originating from Romania” said Cristian Logofatu, CFO at Bittnet.
Jointly, the companies aim to strengthen their position in Romania, enter foreign markets and extend their delivery capacity to the CEE level. As a result of the merger, dendrio will be able to benefit from a stable business structure, extended personnel as well as enlarged portfolio of customers, products and services. Following the merger, Bittnet estimates that by the end of 2019 the group of companies will reach RON 120 million in consolidated revenues, overpassing RON 100 million – a revenue goal that Bittnet has set for itself earlier this year to reach by 2020.
“Our discussions with Bittnet started from the desire to create a Romanian player able to build a significant position on the regional IT market. Through this deal we prove that Romanian entrepreneurs can reach an understanding and build something together, sharing trust and common goals. With our joint expertise and merged capacities, together with Bittnet Group we are dedicated to building a company that will be able to successively expand and create a name and reputation also abroad. As part of the deal, CRESCENDO will finalize all the projects that were already started at the moment of the transaction. The business division dedicated to development of specialized software, management of companies from several well-defined sectors, with which CRESCENDO begin in 1993, will be continued and developed through dedicated niche partnerships, in order to provide CRESCENDO customers with the right solutions that they need” said Marius Tulea, CEO and significant shareholder at CRESCENDO International.
By joining forces and increasing the scale of their joint businesses, dendrio and CRESCENDO will create a significant, local player that will offer a wide portfolio of services to the clients as well as unique growth and development opportunities for their respective team members. By increasing its size and competences, Bittnet aims to provide competitive advantage to all its current and prospective employees by creating a Group structure that offers opportunities for dynamic growth, expanding skills as well as professional capabilities.
“Following our merger with GECAD NET, we have identified a number of advantages that operating at a larger scale brought us. This included offering ourselves and our teams an ability to collaborate with more partners and allowed us to grow and expand all of our professional competences. By joining forces with a player such as CRESCENDO, we can now offer top IT experts who already work with us or who will join us in the near future, a unique possibility to work in an extremely dynamic but also entrepreneurial environment, which offers many paths for professional development. In a situation where competition for talent is as fierce as it is now in the IT field in Romania, we believe this will be one of the key differentiators for Bittnet Group that will help us retain the best people” said Mihai Logofătu, CEO at Bittnet.
The transaction is subject to the approval of the General Shareholders Meeting of the two companies as well as the approval of the Competition Council. Bittnet will initiate the procedures for convening the General Shareholders Meeting in the coming period.
This will be the fourth acquisition for Bittnet Group in the course of last 12 months. In the third quarter of 2017, Bittnet has acquired GECAD NET, an IT services integrator, which is now present on the Romanian market under dendrio brand. In July 2018, Bittnet has finalized the acquisition of 51% stake in ELIAN Solutions, an ERP provider and in August 2018, of 25% in Equatorial Gaming, a game-based learning company. Like in case of previous 3 acquisitions, Bittnet will finance the deal through a new issuance of corporate bonds, or through a bank loan.
