Forbes – Plummeting stock prices in Eastern European should have made the region full of rich pickings for Western investors, but hedge funds and private equity firms have been sitting on the side lines for the last few months, fearful that things would continue to deteriorate. Now the tide is finally changing, and the some of the first investors dipping their toes back in are from the private-equity sphere.
Italian insurer Assicurazioni Generali has just put 300 million euros ($419.8 million) into a joint private-equity fund to invest in Central and Eastern Europe. It is launching the 615.0 million euro ($874.7 million) fund with PPF Group of the Czech Republic, which has already invested some 400.0 million euros ($568.9 million) into the region, focusing on mid-cap companies, a PPF spokesman said.
