Hyparlo trades Italy for Romania

We are giving up Italy for Romania, where we post double sales per store. This is the latest decision made by the French group Hyparlo, which decided to sell its Italian-based operations to develop its business in Romania and France.
Hyparlo is an independent Carrefour Group franchiser; the two operate the only hypermarket in Romania as a joint venture.
“Our group is not big enough to handle a strong development policy in three countries. It seems to us that Romania has much more potential than Italy,” Gilles Venet, Hyparlo’s chief financial officer told Ziarul Financiar.
The two stores Hyparlo operates under the Carrefour brand in Italy posted 113 million turnover together last year, that is 56.5 million euros each on the average.
As a comparison, the hypermarket in Romania posted, as Finance Ministry statistics show, more than 43 million euros in turnover in only six months in business in 2001.
The increases announced by the officials of the company for this store last year were at least 10% higher than in 2001 month by month, so that the overall 2002 turnover could be double the level logged by an Italian hypermarket (100 million euros).
“The results of our Bucharest store have prompted the group to accelerate the growth pace in this country, which has medium-term potential,” the Hyparlo official says.
The second Carrefour hypermarket in Romania will open in October this year. It will be located in the Orhideelor area. The third such store will probably open next year and be located in Bucharest again, this time somewhere in the East side of the city.
Whereas the first hypermarket cost more than 35 million euros, the second and the third will cost some 25 million euros each.
Hyparlo will come to operate 16 hypermarkets by the end of the year, two of which in Romania and 14 in France. The two hypermarkets in Italy and another one under development were bought by the Carrefour Group. Hyparlo is held by the members of the French Arlaud family.