New KKR investment in Serbia's digital services

United Group, majority owned by KKR, has announced an investment of 293 million Euro in Serbia to improve digital services in this country, on top of 264 million Euro since entering the market since 2014.

“In the digital society in which we live it is more and more important to build digital infrastructure, broadband,” Ludo told Brent Sadler, the Chairman of N1 Editorial Board, in an interview.

Bammens said that as far as Serbia’s citizens are concerned, better digital society “means better access to broadband, more bandwidth, higher speeds delivered at home or on their mobile platform. That’s the key. It means that small businesses who want to do business in Serbia or other parts of the world being able to transfer data across fiber optic cables.”

Asked about the confidence to come with huge investments, Bammens said it existed in the fact that over four years “that we have invested these funds on the ground, employing almost 2,000 people in high quality jobs. Over those years our confidence has only grown. We have seen that there is a willingness to become part of wider Europe, to adhere to European rule of law and to evolve to a rule-based economy. To international investors like ourselves that is absolutely critical.”

He added that “we have been here four-five years and have always felt we are welcome as a so-called foreign investor. We have always felt that we were always totally free to build the best quality service and product and offer it to the citizens. We have always felt that there was an honest attempt and effort to apply the rule of law whenever there was a conflict. We feel that our license to operate in the country has strengthened in the past four to five years.”  

For the whole interview click here: