“The revenue shrank because we operated with much fewer trucks. We are trying to boost our market share on the segment of freight shipping to Europe,” said Florian Mihut, general manager of the company and majority owner (66.99%).
The company official expects revenue to reach RON44 million in 2014, compared with RON54 million in 2013. The carrier ended 2013 with RON16 million loss, according to the Finance Ministry data.
The company cut the number of trucks to 120 from the 180 it had before going insolvent, and the number of employees to 170 from 255. Back in 2007, Frigoexpress had 400 trucks.
“We gained contracts with new customers, who export fruit and vegetables to Europe. We cannot reveal their names, competition on this market is really fierce. We’re still working with Unilever and Billa, though.”
The company that managed to boost business via contracts with hypermarkets in Romania before the insolvency is now shipping freight to Denmark, Germany, France, Spain and other European countries.
The carrier filed for insolvency last year because it could no longer repay its debt and Casa de Insolventa Transilvania became its court-appointed trustee. “We will file a reorganization plan in the next few months, in October I think,” Mihut said.
Competition in the road freight transport includes Dumagas Transport, edy International Spedition (also insolvent) and Waberer’s Romania.
Road freight transport market amounted to EUR5.6 billion last year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)