MOL’s milestone

IT IS an important corporate milestone for Eastern Europe. On April 3rd Hungary's oil company, MOL, won the hand of its Slovak equivalent, Slovnaft. The deal not only creates the region's largest oil refiner, but also marks the first time an East European company has taken over a competitor of any size elsewhere in the region. It suggests that, a decade after the Berlin Wall fell, the best local companies are at last developing the financial muscle to try for regional dominance, and that national rivalries that held up cross-border deals in the past are crumbling.