Billa will disappear from the local market by yearend, the representatives of French-held Carrefour group, which took over the Romanian operations of the supermarket chain, announced. Billa was one of the first international chains to have entered Romania, as it arrived in 1999, three years after Metro Cash & Carry started modern retail in the country.
Deals in the sector are one of the main reasons why brands disappeared. Most often the party behind the deals was a strategic investor that wanted to put its own name on the stores acquired. This is why modern local sharks took over several entrepreneurial businesses, which means names like Angst and Artima disappeared.
Another reason is money troubles. The first to go were Romanian brands, starting with Univers’all, PIC and Ethos. The financial crisis and then the fast-paced expansion of modern retail drove other brands to insolvency and then bankruptcy so they only remain a memory today.
The closing of the Univers’all 14-supermarket network of businessman Razvan Petrovici was the first major retail failure. Pic, held by the Penescu brothers, went insolvent on some EUR60 million debt in 2009. Pic had about 3,000 employees and EUR150 million revenue at the end of 2008, yet today nothing remains of it. The financial crisis also caused the disappearance of another brand, Ethos. The Ion Soloman-held supermarket network no longer has any store in operation and some of its 20 stores were bought by Profi or Mega Image, which rebranded them.
Profi took over the nine Albinuta stores for EUR7.5 million from Lithuania’s Maxima LT and has since rebranded them.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)