The Slovenian competition authority has approved the Avto Aktiv transaction, meaning AutoWallis Plc. may gain ownership of the activities and the related real estate properties of Slovenia’s major automotive company. This fulfils an important condition of the transaction, allowing the company listed in the Premium category of the Budapest Stock Exchange to further strengthen its position in the regional market. The acquisition is an important milestone in the life of the AutoWallis Group, because Avto Aktiv’s revenue is significant even among earlier transactions and is close to 10 percent of the revenue the company expects to realise in 2021. In line with its growth strategy, the Group is expanding its international Retail & Services Business Unit with the aim of becoming a major vehicle trading company and mobility service provider in the region. This is not AutoWallis’s first acquisition in Slovenia: in 2020, the company concluded the takeover of the country’s largest, and Ljubljana’s only, BMW dealership, which also marked the group’s entry into the Slovenian car retail market. In addition, the group is also the exclusive authorized representative of the Opel, Jaguar, and Land Rover brands on the Slovenian market.

Avto Aktiv, established in 2004, is a significant market player of the Slovenian automotive retail market, selling and servicing BMW, MINI, Toyota, and Suzuki (and is the exclusive authorized representative of the MINI brand) vehicles in five cities (Koper, Kranj, Ljubljana, Nova Gorica, and Trzin). In 2020, the company reported turnover of EUR 51 million, equal to almost HUF 18 billion, which it achieved through the sale of 960 new and 351 used vehicles and the related repair and other services.

In connection with the conclusion of the transaction, Péter Antal, head of AutoWallis’s Retail & Services Business Unit, said that the Distribution Business Unit is present in 14 countries, with Slovenia the first outside of Hungary where the company entered the retail market. After the conclusion of this new Slovenian acquisition, the company plans to make the most of the opportunities in the synergies between the two actors and to use its capitalisation to continue developing its presence on the Slovenian market, which is why it continues to examine new possibilities for acquisitions in the country.

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