Dedeman is now about to complete arranging its store in Colentina, NE Bucharest, behind the Carrefour hypermarket there, while Leroy Merlin is making progress on the new store it is building at the entrance to Bragadiru, near the city.
While Dedeman will open its new store at the end of the month, the Leroy Merlin south of Bucharest will open early next year, according to the latest statements of the French company.
Investments in the two stores can be estimated at about EUR30 million, considering the budgets they allocated for opening stores in Bucharest.
Bucharest has only 16 DIY stores left, after Germany’s OBI decided to close its seven stores in Romania.
Whereas the new Leroy Merlin will be located in an area not served by any other DIY retailer, Dedeman’s Colentina store will be only about 4 kilometers away from Praktiker’s store in Voluntari, the first the retailer now owned by businessman Omer Susli, opened in Romania.
Dedeman will therefore have three stores in Bucharest and plans to open more for a total of six, eyeing Bucurestii Noi and Theodor Pallady areas for it.
The store near Bragadiru will be Leroy Merlin’s second in Bucharest, after the one it opened on Soseaua Chitilei in 2011. Its owner, the Mulliez family, will expand presence in the city once the recent acquisition of rival BauMax network has been approved by the Competition Council.
The acquisition of the local BauMax network will give Leroy Merlin 15 stores throughout the country, two of which in Bucharest, one in the Sun Plaza mall in the south of the city and the other on Soseaua Chitilei, close to the Leroy Merlin store there.
Under the circumstances, the company will probably close one of the stores there, which it might turn into a storage facility.
Another move expected soon is the conversion of the Bricostore stores in Militari and Baneasa into Brico Depot stores, the brand UK’s Kingfisher introduced in Romania after taking over the French DIY retailer. Kingfisher has already rebranded the stores in Pantelimon and Orhideea this year and plans to complete the process for all the 15 Bricostores in the country within two years at most.
The areas with most DIY stores in Bucharest are the west of the city (the exit to the Bucharest-Pitesti highway) – four stores (Dedeman, Praktiker, Bricostore and Hornbach) and the south of the city (Berceni) – BauMax, Hornbach, Dedeman and Praktiker.
With average sales of about EUR15 million, the 16 DIY stores in Bucharest generate annual sales of more than EUR200 million on a total market estimated at about EUR1 billion.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)