Carel Bruseker, chief financial officer of Profi Rom Food, the company that manages the Profi stores in Romania, says that although no deal has been struck with any store chain, the retailer is looking both at chains with just a few stores, and at much larger chains, without providing any names, though.
“We are in talks with several companies, but nothing has been finalized yet. We are targeting retail chains of various sizes – some smaller, with just a few stores, and others considerably larger in terms of number of stores,” explains Bruseker, a Dutchman who has been working in Romania for nearly four years, almost two of which within Profi.
The statements made by Bruseker, the first person in the company’s management team to talk about acquisition plans, come shortly after information appeared in the German media, according to which German group Rewe, which operates the Penny Market, Penny Market XXL and Billa store chains, might part with Penny Market stores in Romania and Bulgaria, and that Enterprise Investors investment fund might be interested in buying.
Penny Market last year posted a EUR384 million turnover, up 4.5% from EUR368 million in 2009 and currently operates an over 117-store chain in a local retail market valued at around EUR16 billion.
Cristian Nacu, partner with Polish investment fund Enterprise Investors, which holds Profi stores, said at the time that he had not talked with Penny Market about a prospective takeover. However, Nacu does not rule out the possibility of an acquisition in retail, where the investment fund already operates the Profi chain, which it acquired in November 2009 in the wake of a EUR66 million deal.
The Profi chain currently consists of 96 stores, 13 more than at the beginning of the year.
Profi’s sales rose by 14% in the first half of 2011 compared with the same time last year. Profi posted EUR172 million sales in 2010, an increase on the EUR115 million in the previous year.
(English version by Daniela Stoican, edited by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)