“Profi has been looking at all retail actors on the market for a long time. We just want to be around owners when they decide to part with the business,” said Daniel Cirstea, Profi CEO.
His statement came amid talk about Profi and Mega Image looking at the Unicarm network, as market sources said. Unicarm is one of the most powerful entrepreneurial businesses in Romanian retail, having posted 650 million lei (EUR141 million) last year. Profi also looked at Annabella besides Unicarm, market sources added. The entrepreneurs behind the two businesses denied it. Talks have stopped in Annabella’s case, at least temporarily.
International actors also take over each other’s operations, such as Auchan buying Real’s network and Carrefour taking over Billa’s. Now that the number of such opportunities has gone down, they are more and more interested in local actors and after having bought small and medium-sized store chains for the past five or six years, they are looking at the large ones that can ensure faster development (EUR1=RON4.5958)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)