“We are constantly reviewing our business and we are thinking of making some strategic organizational changes at our business in Romania. The talks are still ongoing so we cannot provide any details,” the representatives of the European press office of McDonald’s say.
Premier Capital officials did not return ZF‘s calls for comment by press time.
Ziarul Financiar reported as early as a year ago that the US group was looking for a partner to franchise the local operations, because Romania is too small a market for a direct presence.
To Premier Capital, Romania will become its sixth market and also the largest, as McDonald’s has 67 restaurants in this country, 60 of which of its own and seven franchised by five local entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur operates three such restaurants in Brasov, while the others operate one each. In comparison, there are about 60 restaurants on all the other five markets, according to Premier Capital website.
The local market is not the largest only by number of McDonald’s restaurants but also by population and surface area. McDonald’s officials have previously said that given the size of Romania and its population, there was room for expansion to about 100 restaurants.
ZF has also recently reported that the US group was in talks with franchisees to turn over the restaurants to them, so the entire 67 restaurant business in Romania will be transferred to a franchisee officially this fall. The official transfer should be done in October, ZF has found.
Premier Capital is part of the Hili Venture group based in Malta, which has logistics, real estate, technology, oil and gas or restaurant operations in over ten countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Its website says it has partnerships in place with McDonald’s and Apple. Hili Venture and another Maltese company operate iCentre in Romania, a brand used for stores that sell Apple products. There is one such iCentre store in this country in the Promenada Mall in Bucharest.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)