Hornbach invests 19m euros in first store outside Bucharest

German DIY retailer Hornbach, which entered the Romanian market in 2007, invested 19 million euros in its first provincial store, in Brasov, which it opened last month, and has now reached investments worth 100 million euros in Romania. The store has a 22,000 square-metre sales area, and is the chain’s third one in Romania. The first two Hornbach stores, opened in Bucharest, entailed overall investments worth 63 million euros, with the company most likely to have three stores in Bucharest next year, after it opens a store on the site of the former Prisma store complex. The Germans acquired this area in 2007, when they took over several 150,000 square-metre plots and the buildings of former Prisma complex on National Road 1 for 20 million euros from two companies that had entered bankruptcy procedures. Now, Hornbach intends to sell some of these plots to another retailer, and develop a retail park on the site of the former Prisma complex.