Abris takes Polish car fleet company off General Motors’ GMAC

Central and eastern European-focused private equity group Abris Capital Partners has taken the wheel of Masterlease Polska, a car leasing business previously owned by General Motors’ financial services arm GMAC.

Masterlease set up shop in 1995 to provide vehicle leasing services to an expanding number of international and domestic corporate clients in Poland, and in 2001 was picked up by GMAC to become part of its global auto finance operations. The business now operates a fleet of 24,000 vehicles, making it a market leader in central and eastern Europe.

Due to the lack of available debt to finance the acquisition, Abris had to replace the leverage previously provided to Masterlease by GMAC by using a new trading platform, Catalyst, for corporate and government bonds, recently launched by the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The fund manager arranged PLN500m (€129.3m) in corporate bonds, the first private equity deal to use the exchange.

Abris, manager of a €320m fund, is a new private equity group set up in 2007.