“We have always been attentive to the way the market is evolving and I admit we have been interested in three local companies,” Nuber told Business Standard. The company official will be in charge of Nestle’s Swiss-based Super Premium Luxury Division as of March.
Nuber said that trading in the domestic market for the Swiss one will not be difficult. The company’s annual net sale growth rate is 10 percent in Romania, the target on the premium segment is three percent in Switzerland. Nestle’s net sales forecast for 2008, of €100 million, was reached three years ago, in 2006. During his mandate, Nuber succeeded in increasing net sales almost five times in the past five years, to almost €200 mln in 2008 from €40 mln in 2003.
The company official said that the Romanian market is just beginning to feel the crisis and “we will not meet with the so-called normality of the past few years for some time.” As a measure to counter the effects of the crisis, Nestle rose prices 4-5 percent in January, and a new increase is yet to come, due to exchange rate fluctuations.
In 2008, Nestle decided to transfer its local ice cream production to Bulgaria, in order to increase efficiency of its regional operations. Despite the economic crisis, the company maintains its net sales growth rate forecast of over 10 percent for 2009.
