The information was verified by general planner Capitel Avangarde, which said the German-held retailer was to open a 5,000 square meter hypermarket on the site.
On the other hand, Kaufland’s officials deny having bought the land, dismissing the information as groundless and inaccurate.
Diaconu said Kaufland had bought only part of the land of the former plastics plant Munplast, which covers 23,500 square meters. He would not provide details on how big the plot acquired or the value of the deal was.
According to the zoning plan on the website of Bucharest City Hall, the plot in the western part of the city where Kaufland is to build its new store has an area of 17,500 square meters.
The hypermarket building will take up 5,000 square meters of the available land and the rest will be used for parking lots, sidewalks, traffic lanes and green spots. Taking into account an average price of EUR300 per square meter for the 17,000 square meter plot, Kaufland may have paid about EUR5 million for it, according to ZF’s estimates. Building the hypermarket should require EUR7 million to EUR10 million, according to ZF estimates.
The assets and the land of the Munplast plant had been put up for sale as early as 2008. The production facility was relocated to the Faur Industrial Park in eastern Bucharest this year, according to the company’s website.
This land acquisition will turn Kaufland’s new store into a thorn in Auchan’s side, as the French-held retailer bought the land of the former Tricodava plant nearby. Auchan plans to open its hypermarket there in 2013.
The store on the Munplast’s site will be Kaufland’s first in the sixth sector of Bucharest (west of the city). The German-held retailer owns three more hypermarkets in Bucharest. The new store will serve the Drumul Taberei quarter, a bedroom community of the city. All large retailers, that is cash&carry stores and hypermarkets, are present in the city’s sixth sector, which includes the Militari and Drumul Taberei quarters.
Kaufland, one of the lowest-profile retailers in Romania posted EUR1.35 billion revenue last year, 20% higher than in 2010 and over 50% higher than in 2009, according to ZF estimates.
Munplast, a company currently insolvent, is held by Munactiv (49.3%) and other 568 shareholders, according to Trade Registry data. Munactiv has a number of owners and Maricel Diaconu is the main individual shareholder with his 23.25%, according to the same source.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)