It opened a store in Orhideea shopping center in Bucharest (close to the city center), with another one to follow in AFI Palace Cotroceni (west of Bucharest) this week.
Kenvelo will not open any more TimeOut stores in 2012, but wants to continue expansion in 2013 so as to reach ten such stores before Easter, said Philippe Besadoux, the chief executive officer of the Kenvelo in Romania.
He says he is in talks with several malls in Bucharest and major cities across the country.
The average floor space of a store is 150 square meters, but the store to be opened in AFI Palace Cotroceni will be the flagship of the TimeOut brand, with a floor space of 220 square meters and the largest in Romania.
The company expects sales of the brand to reach EUR4,000 to EUR5,000 per square meter a year, Besadoux said. An average 150 square meter store should therefore generate EUR600,000 to EUR700,000 sales.
This is TimeOut’s second time on the Romanian market, after having operated via a franchise in this country and closing all its stores during the crisis.
Philippe Besadoux has previously explained that TimeOut’s was not reintroduced in Romania via a franchise but via a partnership, as Kenvelo shareholders own a stake in TimeOut.
Kenvelo posted about EUR20 million revenue last year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)