“The subsidiary helps us test the market and make ourselves known, not necessarily through very extensive works, but works of below EUR1 million. Austria’s market is better than Romania’s, payments are made on time. In Western Europe in general, banks are closer to builders, loans are granted at smaller interest rates,” said Florea Diaconu.
Delta ACM 93 is one of the companies that have bet on expansion abroad in recent years, as Romania’s construction market contracted by around 40% during the crisis, and new projects, either private or state ones, have been dwindling.
Austria is the first step the company makes toward Western Europe, after it worked in countries of the Middle East and Africa.
“We want to gain experience. In Austria we want to build particularly low energy-consumption houses, for individual clients, as well as blocks. In Romania, cheap houses are being built, but such houses are not for the future,” stated Diaconu.
Another Romanian-held company that tapped Western markets is Hidroconstructia, controlled by its management and employees. The company works in the field of civil and industrial constructions in Germany and in the hydro-technical and civil field in Belgium.
Delta ACM 93 currently works abroad at a highway in Iraq, with the value of the contract amounting to some $66.7 million (EUR47.8 million). The company also gained a contract in the Republic of Moldova in 2012 for the construction of some roads in Chisinau, worth some EUR6 million, and in 2013 won a contract of around EUR10 million in Gabon for infrastructure in a housing district.
The latest contracts were won in late 2013 in Algeria and in Iraq.
Delta ACM in 2013 posted revenue of EUR123 million and net profit of EUR8.8 million, with 1,562 employees.
Projects the company currently carries out in Romania include the rehabilitation of National Road 56 Craiova-Calafat, the prefab section of the new subway line of Bucharest’s Drumul Taberei or an aqua leisure complex of Craiova, according with the latest information.
Also, Florea Diaconu in 2013 decided, together with businessman Alessio Karkhi, to invest around EUR40 million in a housing compound of southern Bucharest.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)