“We restructured the truck fleet. We got to 130 trucks from 180 Volvo trucks before insolvency. We now have 177 employees from 255 ahead of insolvency,” stated Florian Mihut, general manager of the company and its majority stakeholder (66,99%). Dorel Laza owns 13.7% in the company and the rest of stock is held by 179 individuals.
The company, which has come to transport commodities for major hypermarkets on the market, was set up in 1973 as a subunit of ITIA Bucuresti and in 1993 was privatized through the MEBO method.
“We developed a lot until 2007. I was the general manager of ITIA and when the company was privatized I bought shares and turned it into Frigoexpress”.
The transporter had reached 400 trucks in 2007, but in “2008 trouble started, the market declined by volume and prices plummeted after major shipment companies also entered the market”.
Frigoexpress filed for insolvency as it was no longer able to pay its maturing debt. In August 5, 2013, Bihor court of law accepted the request and Transylvania Insolvency House was designated as a legal administrator.
“We filed for insolvency last August. Now we still operate on the market, we’ve kept 75% of our clients and won new ones. We focus on external markets”.
The company’s total debts amounted to 78 million lei (EUR17 million) in June 2013.
The road freight transport market amounted to EUR5.6 billion in 2013.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)