Pangram Resita owner invests 12m euros in resort

Businessman Ioan Popa, the majority shareholder in Pangram Resita, one of the top players on Romania”s pasta market, has turned his passion for skiing into a business opportunity by launching a tourism project worth 12 million euros in the Crivaia Semenic region of the Banat Mountains.

“This does not mean the pasta business is faltering. On the contrary, business is going well and we are making new investments. For pasta I”ve got the infrastructure and the management, so I”m available for other things. I”m getting bored at the factory and no longer see why I should hang around there. And of course, I”m a passionate skier,” says Popa. In partnership with the local authorities, Popa has already launched his new project, which will include a gondola-type ski lift worth 4-5 million euros and piste infrastructure costing 2-3 million euros. The remaining investment will go on local authority efforts to improve the infrastructure of the region. The project is scheduled for completion within three years.

Popa recently began building a hotel in the Resita area as part of a 1.5 million euro investment. The hotel will be partly for employees and partly for tourists.

In the search for higher profitability, an increasing number of bakery businesses are looking to other sectors. The latest example is Boromir, whose shareholders recently announced an investment in a chain of supermarkets.

Pangram Resita generated 13 million euros in turnover last year, twice the level of 2003. This year turnover is expected to rise to 20 million euros following the investment of 3.5 million euros in a mill scheduled for completion in October.

Pangram also owns a factory in Resita with a daily capacity of 50 tonnes. Last year this factory produced around 12,000 tonnes of pasta and began producing pasta made from hard wheat.

The company has its own distribution system that uses 160 vehicles and 19 warehouses spread across the country. Between 1994 and last year, Pangram was a Romanian-German joint venture, however the German shareholder sold its participation to its Romanian partner two years ago.

Pangram”s main competitors are Baneasa Bucharest and Pambac Bacau.

Together, the three companies control 75% of a market put at 24-25 million euros.

The market was joined last year by a heavyweight of the milling and bakery market, Boromir Ind from Ramnicu Valcea, which bought a smaller pasta producer, ProPasta from Iasi, for around 600,000 euros. stelian.negrea@zf.ro