At that time, the Tinmar group’s revenue might overshoot the one billion euro mark, considering consolidated revenue stood at EUR730 million last year. Most of it, 70%, comes from electricity, while the rest from oil products and natural gas trade.
To get to 3 million household consumers, Oancea will invest EUR4 million and hire hundreds of people. The expansion into the segment comes at the time when fierce competition on the commercial customer market has eaten into the margins of suppliers. Besides supplying electricity to people’s homes, Oancea also wants to power their cars, and is interested to develop a network of charging stations countrywide. He has no intention to sell to an investor, but does not rule out a potential floatation.
After years of keeping a low-profile, Augustin Oancea, the most powerful entrepreneur in Romania’s energy sector, is going public with his plans for expansion in an interview for ZF.
“I am an engineer by training, but my specialty is retail trade. I started during college, my first business was selling footwear and apparel. I had stores all over the Prahova Valley (touristic area in Romania i.e.),” Oancea says.
He decided to make the switch to the energy business in 2001 and says he did not have any political support, even though in the early 2000s one could most often enter the energy market through strong connections with the decision-makers of the moment.
“The first segment I entered was oil product distribution. It is a market I learnt together with the people I had working with me. I’ve never had any political support and I have no political ties even now. I did not have access to cheap hydropower contracts. Tinmar got the supply license in 2004 but we only had our first client in 2007.”
Back in 2007, his company generated EUR17 million revenue. Last year, the Tinmar group posted consolidated revenue of EUR730 million, and could overshoot the one billion euro mark in five years, as a result of expansion on the household consumer market, which will be completely deregulated at the end of next year.
“The target is to reach 3 million household consumers in five years. We have so far invested one million euros in developing the necessary software, in the call center, in infrastructure, but the budget to go national is EUR4 million. We will return with a complete and complex offer to attain this target.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)