“We are maintaining our expansion plans. We have a project in Ploiesti, in which we will invest €60 million, and we are carrying out negotiations for a further five spaces to rent, and it is 90 percent certain that we will sign for two of these. We will also enter the Bucharest market this year,” PIC’s General Manager, Liviu Facaleata, told Business Standard.
The source of funds for the expansion are banks, and Facaleata forecasts that lending regulations will relax in the near future. “The ball is in the banks’ court at the moment. We hope to obtain financing for the projects we have this year,” the General Manager said.
As far as the crisis is concerned, “we have felt only felt panic so far. I do not deny that the initial reactions to the crisis are starting to show in terms of layoffs and reservations about spending the same as before, but in January our sales rose 3-5 percent compared to January 2008,” said the company official.
The PIC group is the only Romanian player present on the hypermarket segment, and its main competitors are Carrefour, Cora, Auchan, and Kaufland.
