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The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), established in 1991 to help the Eastern European countries to make the transition from centrally planned to market economies, is one of the largest single foreign investors in Slovenia. Since 1993, the bank has directly invested EUR 522 m into the Slovenian economy, thereby mobilising an additional EUR 1.2 billion from co-financers and sponsors. In his book The Cold War Was Won in the Nineties, Mr Dejak explains why the EBRD's 51 shareholders could not have dreamt of a better outcome. He reasons that for 10 billion euros of assistance, they gained a stable economic region compatible with the West, an efficient and convenient analytical and management institution, and "they even got a share of a solid investment bank that made a profit". Judging from the bank's income statement, the EBRD made close to EUR 1.5 billion in profits last year, a fact that was not widely publicized. The EBRD explains that these profits mainly came from the sale of its equity holdings and will be reinvested into future operations. Yet some observers make the point that it is not entirely clear why the EBRD plans to continue its operations in countries that, as far as their political elites are concerned, have already made their transition. Slovenia is certainly one of those countries. Marketed as a success story by successive governments and European institutions alike, it is no wonder that one part of the EBRD's profits came from the sale of its share in the state-controlled NLB, the largest Slovenian bank, to the Belgian financial group KBC. But that does not mean the EBRD's work in Slovenia is over: in its 'Strategy for Slovenia', adopted in November 2004, the EBRD announced that it would "continue to support the privatisation, consolidation, re-structuring and, where appropriate, the integration of banking and insurance sectors to better serve the needs of the economy". Whether that means the EBRD will buy itself into Slovenia's second largest bank, NKBM, and take part in a possible privatization process remains to be seen. However, Mr Dejak warns in his book that the recipes offered by the EBRD to transition countries were not always suited to their real needs. "Consultancy services offered to the new governments and the business community in transition countries resembled a socialist shop: even if you were offered the model that suited you, you could be certain they would not have the right size or colour," writes Mr Dejak. Although that does not amount to charges of neo-colonialism that are occasionally directed against other international financial institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank, the fact is that transition countries are under-represented in the EBRD's leadership framework. Mr Dejak is at his most convincing when he analyzes the effects of the institution's management structure upon the interests of transition countries - yet another reason to take up his book.