The EBRD's annual assembly and business forum held in Jordan on Wednesday titled “Extraordinary story about the growth in the European cable distribution and media industry,” heard how successful the KKR and EBRD investments have been in the Balkans, the region that was not much attractive after emerging from a bloody past.
The panel provided a direct insight into a fantastic story on the success in this part of the world with an enormous challenge to create a big and prosperous company as the United Gropu has become.
The founder and the President of the Board of Directors Dragan Solak said he “embraced” the cable distribution technology as an opportunity to directly reach consumers and give them a chance for an interactive communication.
“Those who make content often wait to see if they will have a success in the theatres. A revolution happened when we got a chance to directly reach the audience. We introduced both the Internet and broadband as the second part, while the telecommunications practically developed itself,” Solak said.
As far as the content is concerned, he says, a lot of attention is given to what has been delivered.
“We wanted to deliver the content that is as interesting as possible. When I spoke to my partners in Kragujevac about this project, we planned to headquarter ourselves there, but then the projects followed its path. We had a great managing team from the very beginning and the majority of them is still with us. We had a good idea, a bit of luck, but put in a lot of effort,” he added.
Victoriya Boklag, the CEO United Group, said she had joined the project when the idea was still based in Kragujevac and also in several smaller towns in Serbia.
“At one point we have realised that the story was much bigger. The first phase happened in an apartment and several rooms. Dragan had a great vision to start a cable company in Serbia and we were all lucky that we met,” she said.
Boklag added that people who worked in different areas had a lot of energy, but almost no one had any experience in telecommunications.
“We watched what the big players were doing and tried to bring home the best from the world. We had the right people to implement that in Serbia, we were lucky and we had a good fun,” she said.
Solak added they had great partners. “After two years, the EBRD recognised our work as something good and the Bank gave us the first loan and bought 10 percent of our shares. We have used the opportunities that were available,” Solak said.
The whole Panel’s video available here:
