Press release

CIS PRIVATE EQUITY FORUM
May 19-20, 2005
Hotel Baltschug Kempinski, Moscow

19th May 2005 – Over one hundred Private Equity Professionals met at the CIS Private Equity Forum. The speakers and delegates shared views on the future of the industry in the region and the most successful strategies currently in use in Russia & CIS.

Unlike other, more developed markets, which gradually became more competitive, the CIS markets have a great number of deal opportunities with extraordinary returns prospects. Some experts believe that IRR in the range of 20-30% may be a very realistic possibility for the best-managed CIS focused funds. Some of the general partners have proved the latter with a few extremely interesting case studies of the most recent transactions.

But high returns are often connected with the risks, and a large part of the attention was drawn to the investment client in the countries of the CIS (mainly Russian Federation, Ukraine and Kazakhstan). Many of the speakers stated that political inpredictability, and legal and financial risks are the major deterrents from doing business in the CIS and negatively impact their efforts in fund-raising.

The panel of limited partners at the podium discussed the challenges and opportunities in fund raising for the CIS based general partners and what might be expected in the area for next few years.

The conference produced and organised by C5 and sponsored by The Sputnik Group, Breeze Ventures, Quadriga Capital Russia, Squire, Sanders and Dempsey, Ernst and Young and Beiten Burkhardt attracted leading GPs and LPs operating in the CIS.
 
CISPEF2005 was supported by the Finmarket, EVCJ, Profile Media, ISI Securities, Euroweek, National Securities Market Association, Analytical Banking Magazine, Newsbase, Institutional Investor, Euromoney, AltAssets and Atlas Insurance.
 
Based on the success of this years event, C5 plans to repeat it next year with the possibility to turn it into an annual Forum for private equity professional similar to the CEE Private Equity Forum (CEEPEF), which has been hosted by C5 every autumn for the last nine years.

For speaking opportunities at CIS PEF 2006 please get in touch with:

Konstantine Malinovski
+44-207-878-6987
konstantine@C5-online.com

For sponsoring opportunities please contact:

Alica Brlajova, C5
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7878 6973
alica@c5-online.com

www.c5-online.com