The Management Board of Etos S.A. is pleased to announce the finalisation of the process of acquiring a financial investor for ETOS S.A.– a leading clothing company in Poland – operator of the Diverse, Iridium and CLTN brands. The investment involved a capital increase in the Company. The Company Founders have not sold their shares. As a result of the transaction, a controlling stake in the company has been taken by Abris Capital Partners. At the request of the parties, the transaction value has not been disclosed.

ETOS S.A. has been operating on the Polish and European market for almost 20 years and the Diverse brand enabled it to achieve a leading position in the sport casual segment, while effectively competing with leading global brands from this segment.

The purpose of the investment has to strengthen a leading position of the company on the market of sport casual clothing in Poland. The Management Board of Etos and Abris Capital Partners intend to improve operating effectiveness of the Company and to extend the scope of its activities, primarily by opening new shops under both the Diverse brand name and a new brand of shops, Roar, offering products from the world’s leading sport casual clothing brands.

The Company

ETOS S.A. (www.diverse.pl) is a leading operator on the Polish clothing market. The Company has almost 200 shops located in shopping centres throughout the country. The Company also sells its products through renowned international multibrand chains in Poland. ETOS’ leading brand is a sport casual brand – Diverse. The Iridium brand is targeted at the more affluent and demanding customer expecting high quality sports and casual clothing. The CLTN brand is targeted at young, active people who value a free and active way of life.

The company is also the founder and patron of the professional sports group, Diverse Extreme Team (www.diverseextremeteam.com), whose contestants have been entering extreme sports competitions throughout the world for many years, including the Dakar Rally, the Tunisian Rally, the world kite surfing championships and the world freestyle motor cycle championships.

The investor:

Abris Capital Partners is a company managing private equity funds, focused on projects in the Central and Eastern Europe. It specialises in investments in the range of EUR 15-45 million in non-public companies. Currently, the portfolio of Abris includes seven investments. In addition to WestLB and FM Bank banks, Abris holds, inter alia, a controlling interest in the Ukrainian Barvinok hypermarket chain, Alumetal – manufacturer of casting aluminium alloys and a distributor and manufacture of salt snacks operating in Ukraine, Romania and Poland. Recently, Abris purchased a controlling interest in Masterlease Polska from its previous owner GMAC.

The Advisor:

Holon Consultants (www.holon.pl) acted as a financial and transaction advisor to the Company in the process of finding a capital investor, which involved preparing the offer, identifying potential investor and concluding the transaction with a selected capital investor. Holon Consultants is a specialised financial and strategic advisory firm, focusing on the implementation of capital transactions on non-public market.