Dinu Patriciu and his Georgian associate Lado Gurgenidze announced on Tuesday in a press conference at Tbilisi that they purchased 91% of the Popular Bank. The two paid 15 million dollars and the investments represents the first move of the new investment fund Liberty, whose shareholders are Romanian businessman Dinu Patriciu and Gurgenidze. The Romanian businessman announced the intention of the new company to invest in one or two opportunities of this sort each year.

I am delighted to work in this new project with Lado Gurgenidze, Patriciu declared in a press conference at Tbilisi. In the following year we're planning to attract supplementary capital for Liberty, Patriciu explained.

At his turn, Lado Gurgenidze, CEO at Liberty and future executive president and CEO at the bank, declared expressed his enthusiasm over the first move on the market of Liberty. The Popular Bank in Georgia has a great potential of profit due to the high number of branches it holds and the fact that it is the bank through which the state pays its state pensions.

The Liberty investment fund, recently set up by the two targets financial services in emerging countries, characterized by open economies with healthy fiscal policies and a good corporate governance, the new company's presentation reads.

The article was written in close collaboration with Commersant Georgia