“We’ve opened two new pharmacies since the beginning of the year so we now have 93. We allocated RON8 million investment budget in 2016, which we will use to open four more pharmacies and strengthen the already existing ones,” Florin Gheorghita, Belladonna shareholder, told ZF in an e-mail interview.
“We will focus on strengthening the existing pharmacies in the next two years, and will diversify products and expand customer portfolio.”
This is one of the few interviews given by the Romanian entrepreneur, who owns Belladonna together with Alina-Nicoleta Gheorghita, according to the latest officially available information.
Belladonna is not among the five largest actors on the retail pharmacy market in Romania by number of pharmacies because it has fewer than 100, according to available data. Still, it is a major player in Bucharest because all its pharmacies except two operate in the city.
The largest retail pharmacy chains in Romania are Catena (550), Sensiblu (more than 400) and Dona (270), which compete on an over RON15 billion market.
Belladonna positioned itself as a chain of low-price pharmacies, a segment rivals Sensiblu (Punkt brand) and Help Net (Help Net Convenabil) have recently entered, as well.
Belladonna owners say expansion throughout the country might come in two years.
“National expansion of Belladonna would have entailed significant investments that would have translated into price hikes in our pharmacies at first. We want to be known as such (a low-price pharmacy i.e.). We are looking into national expansion as of 2018.”
Gheorghita says Belladonna is actually a group of five companies – Belladonna Concept Pharm, Belladonna Trade Pharm, General Next Pharm, Action C Prod Impex and Bld Pharma (warehouse). The group posted RON420 million revenue last year, down 5% on 2014, he added, explaining the decline was due to the drug price cut (in force since July 2015, i.e.) and the VAT cut. The drug price cut to the lowest level in 12 EU countries affected the entire pharmaceutical industry last year, not just pharmaceutical producers.
Despite the 2015 decline, Florin Gheorghita says he expects double-digit growth in 2016, based on the first quarter results. If the revenue goes up 10%, it will be close to RON450 million. (EUR1=RON4.4664)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)