M&S and Beauty Shop expansion

Greek Marinopoulos Group, the franchisee of Marks&Spencer for Greece and Eastern Europe plans to open nine more M&S and Beauty Shop stores in Romania over the next two years, following an about 9 million-euro investment. “The shops will be opened in Bucharest, Timisoara , Cluj, Iasi and Brasov. We are trying to expand along with the Romanian market development,” Giorgios Bethavas, the Greek group’s manager for Romania said. The group currently holds four Beauty Shops in Bucharest and Constanta, as well as two Marks&Spencer opened in the Mall and Orhideea shopping complexes. The total investments made by the Greek group so far amount to 3.7 million euros, with the estimates for the opening of the new stores reaching 5.5 million euros for Beauty Shop and 3.5 million euros for M&S. Bethavas added he was pleased with how the group’s business fared on the Romanian market and that he was expecting to see significant turnover growth this year. “We anticipate 3.8 million euros for the M&S stores, 1.3 million euros more than in 2002. At the same time, we expect over 6 million euros for Beauty Shop,” Bethavas specified. ZF