Vodafone, number two on the local mobile telephony market, terminated the contract signed with GSM retailer Fonomat in March 2011, whereby it outsourced management of the Proton network comprising 70 stores, sources on the telecom market said.
“The Proton network will no longer be managed by Fonomat and will be overseen by Sayfone 2009, a company wholly owned by Vodafone,” sources on the telecom market told ZF. As a result, Sayfone will take over the Proton stores and their sales force and the operations will be run by the store managers and Vodafone’s area sales managers.
According to information obtained by ZF, the manager in charge of (re)integrating Proton into the Vodafone organization will be Adrian Gheorghe, the former sales manager of Proton, who is now commercial manager of Sayfone. A Vodafone team will inspect all Proton stores over the coming weeks to discuss the details of the operational integration into the Sayfone.
Why was the contract terminated before expiry? The performance targets the two partners discussed a year ago were not achieved, market sources say.
GED Capital and Vodafone officials did not provide any comment by the time the story was ready for posting.
Vodafone bought GSM retailer Proton Technologies from a local entrepreneur, Gabriel Sandu, in 2009. In March 2011, the Proton network had 70 stores, as many as it does now, according to its website.
Fonomat, a retailer formed by acquisition and integration of several local retailers had 61 stores in March 2011 and now has only 39 left, according to the information on its website.
Almost a year ago, Vodafone announced it would outsource management of Proton to Fonomat, to boost performance of operations. It let Proton’s management team go, a team led by Adrian Florea, who had previously worked for Cosmote, Zapp, Motorola and Orange. Adrian Florea became general manager of Netcity Telecom, a company that is installing an underground fiber optic network in Bucharest, in September 2011.
Fonomat was created by acquisitions of businesses started by Romanian entrepreneurs between 2006 and 2008 (Dasimpex, Lexor, Dasino Telecom & IT, Dasimpex GSM, GSM Land and Plus GSM) and reached its development peak in 2009, when it had close to 180 stores and operated as a dealer of mobile telephony operator Orange. Orange decided to no longer extend the contract with Fonomat in the spring of 2010.
In mid 2010, Fonomat announced it had signed an exclusive deal with Vodafone. At the time, the network numbered 166 stores. In April 2011, when it took over management of Proton, it only had 61 stores. Another year later, the network further shrank to 39.
What will the next step be? GED Capital will leave the business by selling most of the stores to Vodafone, ZF has learnt, with the telephony operator also assuming the retailer’s debts. The two parties are still in talks and have not signed anything yet, market sources say.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)