“After the first eight months of this year we are on schedule with our turnover and for 2012 as a whole we keep our estimates for a rise of less than 5%,” says Thierry Destailleur, general manager in charge of development at Cora.
The rise could come from the stores opened last year, which were operational for less than a full year in 2011, as well as from the new store openings planned for the coming months. This year’s two store openings will occur before the winter holidays, one of the best times for commerce.
Cora will open two hypermarkets this year – in Bacau (October 25) and Bucharest (November 15) – from the three originally planned. Cora representatives had also announced a store opening in Slobozia, but now they have put it off until 2013.
Cora Lujerului is the chain’s best-selling store in Romania, with annual sales of around EUR100 million, according to ZF data. The store’s sales make up about a third of the total sales of the eight-store chain.
According to previous information supplied by Cora representatives, the retailer wants to open more hypermarkets in Bucharest, where it says there is still room for expansion.
Three stores in 2012
For next year Cora plans three openings, in Slobozia, Ploiesti (in the mall developed by AFI Palace) and in Constanta. In Constanta the retailer will open the Corall mall next year, which will also have a Cora hypermarket. Investments in the three stores will exceed EUR100 million.
Cora has for several years been one of the most cautious players in modern retail, opening only three stores in its first few years of presence on the local market. The French-Belgian retailer started to expand more aggressively in 2010 when it opened two stores, while last year it made three openings.
At the beginning of this year Philippe Lejeune, who has been running the hypermarket chain since it entered the Romanian market, announced plans to reach a 20-store chain over the next five years. Cora has money to expand from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), ING and Rabobank, which granted it a EUR210 million syndicated loan.
Cora ended last year with turnover of 1.378 billion (EUR325 million), slightly down in euros against 2010. A 5% rise would bring the retailer an almost RON1.45 billion turnover at the end of 2012.
“The situation on the political scene of the last few months will not be seen in the turnover. Politics is politics and commerce is commerce,” concludes Cora’s development manager without providing more details.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)