First Romanian food retail franchise could reach one third of hypermarkets' current turnovers

Dinu Patriciu wants to team up with kiosk owners by affiliating them to Mic.Ro district store network he launched on the market 4-5 months ago. The wealthiest Romanian created a tie-up system in food retail similar with that of franchises, through which he wants to get to a network of 2,000-3,000 stores in two years.
Mic.Ro representatives say they have so far gathered applications from 140 people interested to enter the network as partners.
The retailer created by Dinu Patriciu about three years after he withdrew from Rompetrol, currently operating almost 100 modern kiosks in Bucharest, is likely to reach sales of almost 1bn euros in the following years with 3,000 kiosks, representing annual average sales of 300,000-400,000 euros per shop, according to ZF estimates.
By comparison, the around 100 hypermarkets operating on the Romanian market last year logged cumulated sales of 3-3.5bn euros.
Investments in a Mic.Ro kiosk with a 50-100 square metre area stand at 50,000-60,000 euros, according to market data, which means that in two years Mercadia, the company developing Mic.Ro network, plans to finalise investments worth 100-180m euros in network development.