VIENNA (Reuters) - Investors have piled into Poland and overheated stocks there because of the country's size but the rest of fragmented central Europe continues to remain something of a mystery beyond the region, the head of a regional private equity firm said on Tuesday.
Thierry Baudon, managing partner of buyout firm Mid Europa Partners, told the Reuters Central European Investment Summit that he has tried to buy companies listed in Poland but failed because of the high prices.
"Overall, I think this region has a lot going for it," he said. "The only problem it has is it's small. It's very fragmented, very poorly understood by the market. At the end of the day it's 70 percent of German GDP, 100 milllion (people), 15 countries, at least as many languages, and it's not on anybody's radar screen unless you're dedicated to it.
"But it makes it more difficult for competitors to come in, and that's why they all rushed first to Poland because they thought: 'Hey, here are 40 million guys, that much I can probably understand.'"
(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)
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