May 2010

Decathlon Wants To Expand Aggressively This Year
According to media reports, the sporting goods retailer Decathlon is planning to open five new stores in Romania this year. The investment would amount to 35 million Euro, 400 jobs are to be created. The sites have already been fixed, a second store next to the so far single Romanian store is to be built in the north of the capital Bucharest. Als, further stores will be opened in the northeastern city of Iasi, in Timisoara in the west, in the central Brasov and and in the east, in Constanta. Decathlon is controlled by French billionaire family Mulliez, which operate in Romania also the retail chain Auchan.

April 2010

Report: Retailers will grow, but lose regional market share
The entire Romanian retail is expected to increase by 67 per cent to a volume of 69.47 billion U.S. Dollars until 2014. This was found out by the market research company Business Monitor International BMI in its latest report on the Romanian retail called "Romania Retail Report". Last year the retail trade (food, non-food, automobiles and prescription drugs) rose to 41.64 billion U.S. Dollars. Since 1990 this industry has grown on average by 6.8 per cent every year, the company says. However, the Romanian retail will lose market shares in the region in favor of Russia, Turkey and Poland. Romania's retail trade would decrease from the current 3.9 per cent to 3.4 per cent in the region.

March 2010

Metro Registered Again Drop In Sales In Romania
The German retail group Metro suffered in Romania in the past year a sales decrease of 17.58 per cent compared to last year. That is almost three times higher than the decline in sales compared to 2007. At that time, according to official figures, sales rose to 1.592 billion Euro; a year later there were only 1.49 billion Euro. Finally, 2009, revenues amounted to 1.228 billion Euro. Metro Cash & Carry operates 24 markets in Romania. This year one new opening is planned in the capital city Bucharest. However, Metro registered with its retailer real,- a sales increase of 10 per cent over previous year (718 million Euro). Real,- opened in 2009 four new markets. According to media reports, the group's management has made provisions amounting to 27 million Euro, allegedly for the purchase of the Metro shares from the Romanian partner Ion Tiriac.

February 2010

Iulius Mall Can Be Satisfied By Good Figures
The Romanian operator of shopping centers, Iulian Dascalu, can be satisfied. His four Ilius Mall Centers in Timisoara, Cluj, Iasi and Suceava in the past year have registered a total of more than 40 million visits. But the Mall in Timisoara - the oldest and largest of the chain - registered 13 million visitors. Purely mathematically, this means that each inhabitant of the city of Timisoara went shopping 3.5 times every month, at the mall. Extrapolated to the national population, the figures revealed that every Romanian has visited 1.8 times one of the malls by Iulian Dascalu in a year. The sales of the holding Iulius Group holding in the first half of 2009 were equivalent to 15 million Euro. However, the debt burden is strong: more than 270 million Euro haven been accumulated for the construction of the malls.

January 2010

Retail: Expansion And Acquisition Rumors 2010
There is movement in the Romanian retail market. If you believe the recent media reports, the big chains such as Kaufland plan buying land for further investment for their expansion. Just the one chain belonging to the Schwarz group plans to open up to 6 new markets in smaller cities in the first quarter of this year. The money for buying land comes from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which awarded last year a 300 million Euro loan for expansion in Romania and Bulgaria. The Belgian Delhaize Group launches its "Red Market" as a discount-offensive that is to reach in the near future up to 200 markets nationwide. This should probably halt the expansion of Lidl as they announced to purchase the Plus chain.