The insolvency petition is the first official information about the chain controlled by Dinu Patriciu, while Minimax Discount officials did not make any statement on the situation of the store chain.
Asked by ZF about the reason for the chain’s closure, for the insolvency petition and about future plans, Dinu Patriciu answered via SMS: “restructuring and restarting.”
The company’s petition filed with the Ilfov court of law, in which the company is asking for its insolvency, joins the around 40 insolvency petitions against Minimax Discount, a company with 277 million lei (EUR63.7 million) in 2010, up by RON191 million (EUR43.9 million) in the previous year.
The court date is set for June 19. Creditors who have requested the insolvency of Minimax Discount include Dorna Lactate, Covalact, Vel Pitar, Scandia, Romaqua Group (Borsec) , Transilvania General Import-Export, Ocean Fish, DR. Oetker, Herlitz, and Cafea Fortuna.
Some of these companies have withdrawn their insolvency requests, but others are going ahead with the court cases because they have not received their money back.
“We have a case lodged with the Ilfov court against Minimax Discount. The debt we were owed has yet to be paid. We have not received money from them since last year,” says Gabriela Duda, economic manager of Herlitz Romania, the local unit of one of the largest producers of paper and stationery. She did not wish to provide details on the value of the debt, but said Herlitz had delivered stationery to Minimax Discount.
The Minimax store chain had losses of RON14.5 million (EUR3.34 million) in 2010, and the company’s debts amounted to RON127 million at the end of the same year, almost half the turnover, according to the Finance Ministry. No results have been announced for 2011.
Businessman Dinu Patriciu in August 2010 acquired the smallest discount food retailer on the market, MiniMax, with EUR45 million in turnover and 31 stores from Austrian real estate group Real4You and two other foreign investors. The transaction was valued at the time at a few million euros.
Dinu Patriciu is one of the founders of MiniMax, but exited the business after just two years since opening the first stores, in 2006, according to market information. Building the MiniMax stores was among the first investments of the Romanian billionaire on the Romanian real estate market, which he made together with his brother.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)