“The biggest problem I see now is the desperation for renewable [energy] projects, although 80% or 90% of the developments are dependent on the support scheme (whereby companies generating renewable energy get green certificates from the government i.e.), and banks will only finance projects, which are 100% safe,” Bogdan Stoica, partner of law firm Popovici Nitu & Asociatii, told ZF. The law firm posted EUR12.8 million revenues in 2011.
Four or five years ago tens of malls and residential projects were frozen and the same thing is starting to happen on the wind power market. About EUR2 billion have been invested in this industry to get 1,400 MW of up and running over the last three years. The amount of investment planned on paper or waiting for an answer from the boards deciding grid connection approvals is ten times higher. However, only a small fraction of those projects will be completed.
“I think at least 50% of the wind power projects still on paper will fail, even though money was invested in land, permits and wind measurements. Every other day someone comes to us and asks whether we know a buyer for such projects,” Popovici Nitu & Asociatii’s partner says.
Each of the top 20 to 30 law firms has had at least one wind power investor on its client list in the past few years. The most active investor in this business assisted by Popovici Nitu & Asociatii is French-owned Filasa International, whose local project portfolio stands at 1,000 MW (about EUR1.5 billion investments).
The law firm run by Ernest Popovici and Florian Nitu has been one of the really solid performers of the last few years. It did not experience any significant departures, and its revenue continued to grow during the crisis, doubling in the last four years.
“There’s been a time of trouble, of political turmoil, when most customers would ask about taxation, about the flat tax, because they all want to make long-term plans. The general feeling is that everybody is waiting to see the election results and the plans of the new government. No one is pushing things too much in any direction before the elections,” Stoica said.
The lawyer supervises the pharmaceutical practice of his firm and is Florian Nitu’s second in command in the mergers and acquisitions department.
The major cases the firm has worked on lately include assisting Swiss-owned Ameropa in its acquisition of the Azomures plant, one of the most important deals on the local market of the last few years, as well as providing consultancy to Auchan and Immochan in buying the former industrial sites of Tractorul Brasov, Grantmetal and Tricodava in Bucharest to develop shopping centers on.
The firm also has many restructuring projects in its portfolio, which “turn out to be more complicated than acquisitions”, says Stoica, who means refinancing, repositioning, partner changes or sale “to save the company or out of need”.
These projects and the litigation and arbitration department, whose business increased and came to generate 20% to 25% of the firm’s revenue, kept Popovici Nitu & Asociatii in the black.
“We are on schedule with the revenue estimates and will probably see revenue up 7% to 10% on last year. I can say after the first eight months of the year that we attained our goals,” Stoica said.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)