Adastra was founded in 2000 by Jan Cervinka (currently having 47.5 % of the shares), Petr Jech (holding 26.25 %) and Czech-Canadian Jan Mrazek (holding 30 % share) who has been part of the management of Bank of Montreal and helped setup Adastra with its broad Canadian clientele.

The company has been looking for a buyer since October 2024 with the assistance of New York’s JPMorgan. The final two competitors were multinational investment company Carlyle and technology company Synechron. Currently it seems that Carlyle will be the final winning buyer with announcement expected in the upcoming weeks.

Carlyle has already invested in the Czech Republic before into technologically advanced companies like Memsource, Tesca nor Meopta. The expected money invested is around 600 million CAD with all three current owner reinvesting part of their money into Adastra. The M&A market in the Czech Republic has been a slower one so far, which has been influenced by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine as well as the unstable and unpredictable global geopolitical situation and trade wars.  

Author: CzechTrade Toronto

Source: HN.cz