The company’s business rose 19.3 percent year-on-year, to €231.6 million, below initial estimates of 35-40 percent growth. It is also forecasting an advance of some 20 percent in 2009.
The company will have a minimum investment budget this year, of some 2-3 percent of turnover, focusing mainly on current operations, according to the company’s Acquisitions and Logistics Manager, Dan Olteanu, for Business Standard. The expansion process will resume in the final three months of the year, depending on the market evolution.
“We already have land prepared so, once we exit the crisis, we will be able to resume investments, but not before October. Until then, we will have a cautious strategy, to consolidate business, while trying to solve the liquidity problem,” Olteanu said.
Ambient owns 15 shopping centers, covering surfaces of between 14,000 and 26,000 square meters, and several smaller shops. In October 2007, Ambient announced it would invest €136 million by 2010 to open 12 new commercial centers.
Olteanu added that 15 percent of the staff will be laid off in the coming months. Some of the employees were already laid off late last year. The number of employees will be lowered to 2,000, from some 2,700 last year.
The deadlock on the real estate market, due to harsher lending conditions for both clients and developers, has led to the delay of several real estate projects, which severely affected the construction material market.
Ambient’s main competitors are Praktiker, Bricostore, Arabesque, and Dedeman.
