ZF News

Petrom takes 500m euros from nine banks

Petrom, the largest company on the Romanian market, held by Austrian petroleum group OMV, has received a new loan worth 500 million euros from a bank syndicate, intended to cover financial needs, future investments and prospective repayments of existing debts. In the wake of this new line of financing, which involved nine international banks and their Romanian subsidiaries, Petrom’s loans, the only local petroleum and gas producer, reached over 2 billion euros over the last year. Despite having attracted this new loan, Petrom says it is not dropping plans to make a capital increase, which, according to market sources, will amount to one billion euros. “In the first four years investments were covered from the capital increase operated when the company was privatised and from the company’s cash flow, and in the last year we started a financing programme with banks,” says Mariana Gheorghe, Petrom’s CEO, specifying that the company has invested one billion euros per year on average since its 2004 privatisation. The banks that lent the money to Petrom are Erste, UniCredit, Raiffeisen, La Caixa, EFG Eurobank, ING Bank, Marfin Egnatia Bank, Banca Romaneasca and Bawag P.S.K.

CEZ sets up 40 “wind giants” in four months

The Czechs at the utility group CEZ say they will have 40 wind turbines installed in Fantanele, one of the two Dobrogea-based communes where the group is set to invest 1.1 billion euros to build the largest onshore wind farm in Europe. Whilst at the end of August the Czechs only had two turbines installed, CEZ has managed to set up 40 wind turbines, which puts the rate at one turbine every three days. “The first stage of the project (the one in Fantanele, i.e.) will be completed and start operating in the first few months of 2010,” say CEZ representatives. In all, the farm will include 240 turbines, 139 of which will be installed in Fantanele, with the remaining 101 to be installed in Cogealac by 2011. In less than two years’ time, a wind farm with a capacity close to the installed capacity of a nuclear reactor of the Cernavoda plant will be installed in Dobrogea, i.e. a 200 million-euro business per year.

Cefin: Romania has become an attractive production hub again

Stefano Albarosa, general manager and shareholder of commercial vehicle importer and logistics space developer Cefin says next year the building of logistics space and of industrial production facilities will be resumed at a level similar to that of 2004. In 2004, foreign direct investment exceeded 5 billion euros, according to data of the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investment, this being the year when manufacturers in the car manufacturing industry started to consolidate their local businesses by integrating production into their operations and by expanding their portfolio. Carriers such as Edy Spedition, Dunca, and International Lazar started most projects for building logistics platforms, mainly in the western part of Romania. “It will be the year of the new plants and logistics facilities, because Romania has once again become a very attractive production hub, as it used to be in 2004. Romania got back three essential elements that make it competitive: wage cost, the RON depreciated by 35%, and the value of real estate properties has been significantly reduced. This prompted foreign companies to invest here in 2004,” Albarosa said.

OBI expands with 10m euros in Ploiesti and Sibiu

German retailer OBI, the latest player to enter Romanian DIY retail, has announced it will open two stores next year in Ploiesti and Sibiu, which will bring its overall chain to 6 stores. Investments in the two stores can be put at 10 million euros, a sum that does not include rent for the spaces, according to data supplied by the company previously. “In Ploiesti, the OBI store will be located next to a hypermarket opened by the Real chain a few weeks ago, while in Sibiu the DIY operator will open its first store in a retail park of real estate developer CA Immo. OBI, a part of German group Tengelmann, entered the Romanian market in the autumn of last year with plans to open five new stores in 2009. This spring company representatives announced that three of the five projects announced for this year would be put off until 2010 due to the decline of the real estate market. “The results posted by OBI Romania in 2009 are higher than those initially forecast. This encourages us to continue our investment plans into next year,” said Romano Quinzi, country manager of OBI Romania, without specifying company’s sales and profit level in its first year in business.

Luxury brands keep shopping galleries in hotels occupied

Casinos, beauty parlours, as well as international brands such as Louis Vuitton and Ermenegildo Zegna occupy almost entirely the retail space on the ground floor of the Marriott, Radisson Blu, and Pullman hotels in Bucharest, amid lower rent than in malls and on Calea Victoriei, for instance, which is considered to be Bucharest’s main shopping street. The retailers are seeking to attract the 300-400 clients who check into one of the big five-star hotels every day, as well as businesspeople that go into the hotels on their way to the restaurants or to the conference rooms, which are usually located on the mezzanine. “The rent varies from one hotel to another because of factors such as hotel positioning, hotel name, and lettable area of the gallery. For the shopping galleries in the major hotels, rent can amount to 50-60 euros/square metre, while in less well-known hotels, it can drop to up to 20 euros/square metres,” says Alexandru Preda, associate director within Colliers International’s retail division.