Mid Europa Partners, the Central European private equity group, has agreed to acquire Baltic e-commerce firm UAB Pigu and to combine it with peer Hobby Hall Group to create the leading e-commerce site and online marketplace across the Baltic states and Finland.

Mid Europa is acquiring Pigu from MCI.Techventures and minority shareholders; Hobby Hall is owned by MCI.Euroventures. No financial details of the transaction were announced.

Mid Europa will emerge as the majority shareholder supported by MCI.Euroventures (MCI buyout fund), with  the two founding shareholders of Pigu and HHG retaining significant stakes in the combined group. The transaction, which is subject to antitrust approval, is expected to complete in Q2 2021. 

Kerim Turkmen, Partner of Mid Europa, said: "The acquisition of Pigu and HHG demonstrates Mid Europa's continued focus on supporting established e-commerce leaders in the CEE region, such as Allegro, the major e-commerce platform in Poland. We are excited to team up with Dainius, Taavi and our co-shareholder MCI, as the combined group follows a similar path of accelerating investment into innovation and customer experience. We believe the combination of Pigu and HHG will mark a new chapter in the development of e-commerce in the Baltic region."

Dainius Liulys, Co-Founder and CEO of Pigu, who will serve as CEO of the combined group, said: "The combination of Pigu and HHG creates a true regional champion and represents a unique opportunity for us to accelerate e-commerce growth in the Baltics and Finland. We are putting together two incredibly talented teams and expect to leverage our joint fulfilment and technology infrastructure as well as highly complementary product selection to further improve the online shopping experience for our customers. I am delighted to welcome Mid Europa as an experienced and strong partner and look forward to working with them to lead the combined group through its next phase of growth." 

Taavi Rajur, Co-Founder and CEO of HHG, said: "We are very excited about joining forces with Pigu as we share a common mission of constantly improving the value and convenience of online shopping for our customers. I am also pleased to welcome Mid Europa and look forward to working with them and Pigu on building a world class online marketplace in our region." 

The combined group will operate Pigu's sites 220.lv in Latvia, Pigu.lt in Lithuania and Kaup24.ee in Estonia, as well as Hobby Hall's Xnet.lv in Latvia. hansapost.ee in Estonia, and hobbyhall.fi in Finland.

Mid Europa was advised by Porta Finance (M&A), Dechert and Cobalt (legal), OC&C (commercial), Palladium Digital (technology), and EY (financial & tax).