Ardaf to focus on Bucharest

With a new team and a new location for the Bucharest branch, the Cluj-Napoca-based insurer Ardaf plans to double the share of the capital city in its turnover this year. Ardaf reported underwritten gross premiums worth 26.7m euros in 2003, up 25% from 2002, but only 10% came from the branch in Bucharest. “One of the targets for 2004 is to build up the company’s activity in Bucharest. We changed the management team, we have a new location and hopefully shifted into another gear,” the company’s general manager Steluta Racolta said. The former directors of competing insurers Astra and Asirom will manage Ardaf’s Bucharest-based arm, which operates on the premises of the bankrupt bank Columna. ZF