Romanian group Forte Partners, the developer of The Bridge office project in western Bucharest, leased another 10,000 sqm of offices in the project's third building to U.S. tech group IBM. In 2017, IBM leased 18,000 sqm in the first building of the project, which it shares with lender BCR.

The new IBM deal is the first contract signed for the third phase of the project. Phase three of The Bridge will be completed in 2020.

The Bridge will have a total leasable area of 80,000 sqm. Forte Partners has already delivered the first two stages, with beer producer Molson Coors moving its offices in the 6,000 sqm leased here in late March, alongside other tenants such as telecom group UPC, industrial group Schlumberger and medical services group Medicover.

Romanian investors Dragos and Adrian Paval, the owners of do-it-yourself retailer Dedeman, signed the acquisition of The Bridge project from Forte Partners in August 2018. The two sides haven't disclosed the value of this deal, but this may be somewhere between EUR 150 million and EUR 200 million, according to market estimates.

US-based Juul Labs, a startup from Silicon Valley, which has witnessed torrid growth of its electronic nicotine inhalers, will invest about 4 million euro in the new office to support its EMEA operations. The new office will be open in September, with immediate plans to hire 50 people. The office will get some subsidies due to its inclusion in the Pomerania Special Economic Zone. Communcations Director Camilla Dormer said they have hired Michal Gryglewski, who used to run Sony's BSC operations, to head up the new site.

The 3rd annual USA-Europe Business Services Awards to be held in New York, 19 September 2019 at the Harvard Club of New York. Nominations deadline is 28 June!
Link is: https://www.sharedserviceseurope.com/nominations-2019.html

In July, the Jury will receive the full list of all Nominations, to be ranked, resulting in our Short-List to be announced in late-July. These “Short-Listed” firms move on to the final vote, to be cast at the Jury Dinner one night before the USA-Europe Business Services Awards (19 September 2019).

Nominated companies will benefit from a range of free PR around the Summit & Awards, including:

• All Short-Listed BSCs and BPO/ITO providers will be listed individually and promoted in multiple media (online and social media); both in US, CEE, and western Europe.
  
• Both Short-Listed and Winning Companies will find ample opportunity to promote your company Brand (Employer Branding) and your distinctions to your Clients.
  
• Winners will be promoted throughout the full year 2019-2020, including via YouTube video of the Awards ceremony.
  
  
• Nominations submission is free and will take about 9 focused minutes to complete).
  
  

The event will attract more than 140 attendees at the Gala, including more than 40 US-based corporates with Business Services Centres in Europe. Submit Nominations here by 28 June: http://www.sharedserviceseurope.com/nominations.html

The 2019 edition of the annual CEE Business Services Directory has been published in mid-June. Distribution started at ABSL's annual Conference, as well as at ASPIRE's annual conference in Krakow. Additional copies will be available at Deloitte's Lisbon conference (10 September) and at the USA-Europe Business Services Summit and Awards in New York (19 September, www.SharedServicesEurope.com), and at SSOW Prague (14-17 October). The online edition has been posted here: https://issuu.com/biznespolska/docs/ceebsc_directory_2019_final. Additional copies can be ordered via Danuta@biznespolska.pl

European Business Services Association has been mandated to help raise capital for 2 fast-growing BPOs in the CEE region. Both companies have operating track records of several years. The first BPO has revenue of nearly EUR 4 million, and covers the markets of US, Germany, UK, France, and Netherlands; services in the area of mostly P2P (procure-to-pay services), with 80% of their business coming from English speaking markets.

The second BPO is approximately the same size (in terms of annual revenues), and covers markets such as Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria; provides Accounting services (GL, AP, AR) and IT services (Help Desk. SAP competence center, and E-commerce IT Development), as well as Customer Service.

Serious investors or strategic partners should contact, confidentially, Thom Barnhardt, tb@biznespolska.pl (48-508-143-963).

McKesson Business Services Lithuania was registered in June with an authorized share capital of 5 million euros and Ildiko By as its CEO. The new company is wholly owned by McKesson's European unit, Germany-registered McKesson Europe Holdings. McKesson, one of the largest pharmaceutical businesses in the US, ranked 13th among the world's largest companies by 2018 revenue, next to Apple, Glencore, Samsung and others. McKesson posted $208 billion in revenue for the 2017-2018 financial year.

Automotive parts supplier Continental Romania is investing €27 million to expand its office building in Iasi. The new building will have eight floors and a total built-up area of over 21,000 square metres. Completion of the project is scheduled for March 2020.
"The Continental Research and Development Center in Iasi has grown from 30 people in 2006 to over 1,900 employees at the end of 2018. This development has come as a result of the growing number of projects in which our colleagues are involved. The investment demonstrates the importance the company gives to the engineering centre in Iasi," Continental Iasi manager Marian Petrescu said.

Nordzucker, one of the leading sugar producers in Europe, is establishing a Business Service Centre in Kaunas, Lithuania, the country’s second largest city. The company already employs 230 people at its sugar production facility in Kėdainiai, and is now extending its operation in Lithuania.

“The new legal entity ‘Nordzucker Business Services’ will offer a portfolio of services across our group entities, and enables us to drive efficiency and consistency in our processes,” says Alexander Bott, Chief Financial Officer at Nordzucker.

The company believes in Kaunas as an up and coming city in the services industry. The city‘s talent pool was one of the main drivers for Nordzucker when it came to choosing Kaunas over its other shortlist rivals. In particular, the company was looking for competence especially in German and Nordic languages, and this is where the local talent pool’s multilingualism became a real asset.

Kaunas’s low market saturation was also a key factor in Nordzucker’s decision to choose the city, as was the proactive support of local and national governmental institutions. The company also intends to build growing relationships with the city’s educational institutions so that it can continue to source the kind of talent it requires to grow.

“Abroad, expansion projects of foreign companies already operating in the country make up a huge part of foreign direct investment. A significant part of foreign companies operating in Lithuania could potentially bring in more functions to our country. This is why last year, together with Invest Lithuania, while still attracting new investors, we allocated more resources to working with existing ones. The case of Nordzucker shows that this strategy works,” states Virginijus Sinkevičius, the Lithuanian Minister of Economy and Innovation.

General Manager of Invest Lithuania, Mantas Katinas, believes that the arrival of Nordzucker in Kaunas is an illustration of how Kaunas is growing as a hub for business services, especially for German companies:

“Establishing a new Business Service Centre in Kaunas is a strong vindication of the growing strength of the city as a destination for global business services, particularly for the growing hub of German companies that have chosen this location for their expansion.”

Lingaro, a professional services company specializing in analytics, artificial intelligence and e-commerce, opened a new office in Lublin in June. Plans are to hire 100 programmers and specialists in the areas of Business Intelligence, Big Data, Data Science, Cloud and eCommerce.

The new location supports the strategic development of the company, which since 2017 has been recording revenue increases of 40 percent and over 100-percent increase in employment.

“The location of the city was determined by the potential of the city - a large educational base for engineering and technology faculties as well as high quality of teaching. The openness in bilateral communication and support of the city authorities, which in comparison with other locations checked by us show a much more active model of cooperation with potential investors serving advice and guidance”, said Filip Merklejn, Head of the Lublin Site.

The high percentage of foreigners on the IT professional profile living in the vicinity of Lublin was also of significant importance.

“The opening of the branch in Lublin is a strategic decision for us, which will ensure strong support for the company's rapid development. For two years, we have kept the staff turnover rate significantly below the market average”, said Sebastian Stygar, co-founder of Lingaro, which helps Fortune Global 500 enterprises with their digital innovation and digitally-enabled operations.

Since the beginning of the year, Lingaro has been active in the Lublin technological environment, starting cooperation with universities, organizing conferences and industry meetings as well as integration events. Examples of the company's recent initiatives are a Microsoft Power BI workshop organized in cooperation with the KUL science IT club, meetings with specialists and people wanting to get to know the IT world during meet-ups organized together with the G-Devs Lublin community or participation in the Geek Girls Carrots Lublin meeting. Lingaro was also involved in the Lublin IT Days, as well as sponsoring and sharing knowledge during the Click conference.