Bratislava, 28 April 2008 – The Slovak financial group Arca Capital can purchase 60-percent interest in the Czech internet store KASA.cz. The transaction has been approved by the Czech Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS). The second biggest internet store in the Czech Republic has been owned by its founders, Martin and Peter Kasa, Jozef Dospiva and Tomáš Richter.

Last years the European internet stores have been increasing by 20 percent annually in average. When compared with this trend, the kasa.cz group of stores achieved over 70 percent increase in 2007 and turnover of 1.28 billion Czech Crowns. The firm has been operating in the field of retail sale of consumer goods. Besides that, the firm also operates in Slovakia, Germany and Poland. Through its German branch it operates the internet store in Austria. The competitors of the internet store KASA.cz include Internet Mall, 123 Shop or Vltava Stores. The decision to purchase the store was supported by the facts that this field is an interesting and fast developing one with a high growth potential, penetration of internet in the Central and Eastern Europe region is fast and the interest in internet purchases keeps increasing.

“Arca Capital as the investor will help us especially to finance new acquisitions and to enter the markets in the Eastern and South-eastern Europe,” says Martin Kasa, the director of Kasa.cz. “Although we have above-standard profits, we need to invest more and faster in expansion than we are able to earn.”

The investor has big plans with the internet company. “During the two years we plan to strengthen the position of KASA.cz in the Czech market. In Slovakia the store HEJ.sk is a significant entity, however we plan to increase our advance of the competitors”, says Karel Štefulík, project manager of Arca Capital. “Our ambitions for the following four years are even higher. We want KASA to get into TOP 3 of on-line vendors in Hungary, Romania and Poland,” adds Karel Štefulík.

About Arca Capital Group
Arca Capital is private equity and real estate group of holding type having its branches in Slovakia, in the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Great Britain. In the future it plans to undertake new and capital intensive projects in the field of private equity and real estate in Slovakia, as well as in the Czech Republic, and especially in Ukraine, where the group has spread its operation lately. The group invests in enterprises from food-processing industry, energetics, civil engineering, telecommunications, information technologies and biotechnologies. The current activities in Slovakia focus especially on developer projects, such as design furniture shopping centre called LIGHTPARK and residential project HUBICE DVORY. At the beginning of the year the group entered the sector of geodesy and cartography by purchasing GEODÉZIA Bratislava, a.s. This year in January Arca Capital and its investment partners acquired a majority interest in the Ukrainian company CheZaRa that focuses especially on production of communication and security systems in cosmic and civil sectors. Huge residential project called Seven Springs and construction of logistic centres are currently under preparation in Ukraine. Arca Capital Group currently administers assets in the overall value of approximately EUR 125 billion.

Further information:
Monika Dobrovodská
Marketing & PR manager
Arca Capital
tel.: (+421) 2 5825 3514
GSM: (+421) 903 771 656
e-mail: dobrovodska@arcainvestments.sk
www.arcacapital.sk