Grupa ADV, Polish Media Group, Expects International Sales To Double In 2012

Grupa ADV (Pink: GPVSY), a fast-growing Polish media and software group, expects international sales to double this year, said CFO Adam Kuszyk.

The reason is that the Warsaw-based holding company has had initial successes with sales of global-positioning tools for fleets with Saudi Aramco, as well as licensing its Baby Beetles animated cartoons that teach English to children in Turkey, China and India.

Grupa ADV already has a vital U.S. link to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the world's biggest software company. It has a 40-person development unit in London handling updates and management for the Bing search engine, which was ranked No. 2 last month behind Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the No. 1 search engine.

The 12-year-old company, listed in Warsaw, expects revenue to grow rapidly as well, said Kuszyk and CEO Konrad Pankiewicz. That's one reason why it listed American Depositary Receipts last week and hopes to attract foreign investors.

In 2011, the holding company reported earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation rose 63 percent to the equivalent of 6.6 million euros (US $8.7 million) as revenue jumped 73 percent to nearly 93 million euros.

Kuszyk declined to offer a forecast but added, I think we will grow as fast as we used to this year.

The Grupa ADV CFO, 40, said his company was seeking U.S. partners which might be interested in the company's current offerings that include e-commerce for hotel bookings, a tele-medicine service for seniors and Poland's biggest animation studio, Xantus, whose products can be used for advertising as well as content.

To handle its animation work, the company uses servers from International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) a well as Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), Pankiewicz said.