From water pumps to luxury pools

Among the different kinds of construction equipment displayed at the construction fair Construct Expo, there was a large blue dome that managed to draw a lot of attention. It comprised a swimming pool equipped with a water jet in the middle, a Jacuzzi and a medical bicycle, all that one needs in order to relax. Though such a pool costs as much as an apartment, the luxury pools business is profitable in Romania.

The dome for surface pools, which expands the time to use an uncovered pool, was the absolute novelty brought in Romania by Kasta company, at Construct Expo.

The company initially started to do business in the field of industry services and products: equipment for potable water supply, water conveyance and wasted waters processing. It was among the first companies that provided services of water supply design and consulting and hydraulic transport.

The company subsequently developed and expanded in the field of spa industry, trading modular swimming pools, saunas and Jacuzzi.

“We used to offer studies for the optimisation of water supply networks, but we couldn’t stop there: we had to solve the client’s problem together with the client himself and sometimes we had to replace not only a pump, but a whole network segment,” Cristina Grigorescu, the company’s general manager, explained.

Kasta Metal was established in 1994 with an entirely Romanian capital and became a Romanian-American joint venture in 1998. The American partner is Norval Dvorak.

“We started the business with a rather small capital in a field we knew best – water engineering,” Cristina Grigorescu said. The company registered 1.2 million dollars in turnover last year, while the “quite low” profit was almost entirely re-invested.

Cristina Grigorescu says the idea to expand the company’s scope into the field of trading swimming pools and spa products came when she visited a US pump producer in 1995, within the USAID programme.

“After a discussion with the representatives of a multinational group manufacturing pumps for swimming pools (Sta-Rite), we thought we could bring not only pumps, but also swimming pools in Romania.”

“In November 1995, we attended an exhibition of swimming pool pumps and filters held at Timisoara and a few visitors recognised the swimming pool pumps, which made us conduct a more thorough research. We have not made the wrong decision; we started to sell and install swimming pools, saunas and spas,” the company’s general manager recalls.

Cristina Georgescu says that the spa equipment market is “quite generous” and that it can be supplied with the latest products every year. The dome displayed this spring is one of them. It comes in three colours (blue, beige and white) and costs 6,000 dollars.

On the other hand, the dome is a convenient solution for using such a swimming pool longer than those having an aluminium roof, which is permanent, or a sliding one, which is more expensive.

“Our company has built more than 150 family swimming pools throughout Romania. Kasta is currently building its own distribution network in all the large cities,” Cristina Grigorescu said.