These are the first sales figures the company announced after going insolvent last fall.
Ambient posted more than RON650 million sales in its best year of the last five, 2012, when it had 1,500 employees. Last year, it had only 700, according to Finance Ministry data.
“Although the company has been going through legal reorganization, we managed to achieve all our targets in the first half of 2016 and keep our products and services offer unchanged,” said Ioan Ciolan, the main shareholder of Ambient, without revealing anything about the sales.
The Sibiu-based entrepreneur said he has been trying to keep the business afloat for five years, during which the company went through an extensive restructuring process to curb debt. Debt dropped from RON450 million in 2011-2012 to RON260 million last year, but losses worsened to more than RON110 million in 2015. The company continues to operate ten stores.
Even during the crisis and reorganization, Ambient still was among the top three companies in the construction supplies retail and distribution business along with market leader Dedeman Bacau and Arabesque, a business started in Galati by the Rapotan family. The insolvency and the sales decline drove it out of the top three last year. (EUR1=RON4.5325)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)