The Autovit used car lot to be worth €60 million in two years

 “The land we are presently located on is worth €500/square meter. We own six hectares. The price of that land will surely reach €1,000/sqm in two years,” Liviu Dobrin, General Manager of Autovit, told Business Standard. Eventually it will make sense to move the lot to cheaper land, Dobrin added. One option is somewhere near the beltway. “Relocating could cost us over €20 million, not including the price of the land. If the value of the land we own rises to €60 million in two years it would be like buying commercial space on Magheru Boulevard and using it to sell second-hand shoes,” Dobrin said.

Dobrin’s estimates are confirmed by a report by the CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) real estate consultancy agency regarding land prices in Bucharest. The report indicates that the price of one square meter of land in the Vitan area presently ranges from €500-800.

“Offices, homes or even a hypermarket could be built on this land,” Dobrin said, adding that a Praktiker store was recently opened across the road and the largest hotel in Europe is now being built in the area [the four-star hotel developed by the Pro Confort company].

The company invested €2.5 million in modernizing its current location in 2006. The most important conditions necessary for a future location are good infrastructure and an area covered by the Bucharest transportation network, according to Dobrin.

Autovit posted €3.1 million worth of net sales and €1 million in profit in 2006. Company officials estimate €3.7 million in revenues and a 50 percent annual increase in profit in 2007.

The used car company’s financial indexes are not very high due to the fact that Autovit does not actually sell cars, but rather acts as a go-between for transactions. “Since we are merely administrators of the location, visitors are our most important source of revenue,” explains Autovit’s General Manager. The Vitan car lot registered one million visitors last year, each paying an entry fee of RON 3 (€0.9). The company is expecting 1.5 million visitors in 2007.

Annual visitors
The Vitan car lot registered one million visitors last year, each paying an entry fee of RON 3 (€0.9). The company is expecting 1.5 million visitors in 2007.

“If the value of the land we own rises to €60 million in two years it would be like buying commercial space on Magheru Boulevard and using it to sell second-hand shoes Liviu Dobrin General Manager, Autovit