Mid Europa Partners, the central and eastern Europe-focused buyout house, has sold two telecoms firms for a combined €1.2bn, marking the region’s biggest private equity deals since Lehman Brothers collapsed and a return to life for the troubled market.

Mid Europa agreed to sell Polish cable TV group Aster for 2.4bn Polish zloty to UPC Polska, an affiliate of media group Liberty Global. The buyout firm and Aster's management will roughly double their investment of €178m in the telecom group's €412m buyout in 2006, following an interim recapitalisation in 2007, according to Matthew Strassberg, a partner at Mid Europa.