How Turks at Ozer, builder of first mall and of America House, left the market

The Turkish shareholders of Ozer Construction, which entered insolvency proceedings on November 1st, have sold their stakes to a group of three Romanian lawyers.

Turkish-held Ozer was among the first foreign builders to enter the Romanian market over ten years ago, when it started construction of Romania's first mall - Bucuresti Mall in Vitan - for another Turkish-held company - Anchor Grup.

A large number of projects followed, bringing hundreds of millions of euros into Ozer's accounts, up until this year, when, following the debt accumulated, the company's shareholders requested the company to file for insolvency, and, more recently, the company's lawyers took over the stakes, according to data published in the Official Gazette.

"We just wanted to solve a problem. Either somebody was going to handle it, or a big scandal was to follow. I have been working with Ozer since 2001 or so and I knew how things stood as far as inflows and debt were concerned at Belleview (the residential complex started by Ozer in Sinaia i.e.)," says Veronica Junger, one of the three lawyers that became a shareholder of Ozer Construction.

She did not provide information on the financial resources available in order to continue the company's operations.

After the first information emerged about Ozer's financial trouble, several buyers of apartments in the Belleview complex started to seek information in the press, because company representatives could no longer be reached on the phone or at the company's headquarters.

Ozer Construction posted a 43 million-euro turnover in 2008, whilst its debt reached 34 million euros, according to data on the website of the Finance Ministry. Since 2005, the company's debt had doubled from one year to the next, starting from three million euros. In 2006 it rose to 5.8 million euros, 16 million euros in 2007, while revenues did not record the same rise.

Ozer started out as a contractor with its portfolio including two buildings representative for Bucharest's office market - Europe House, the headquarters of Orange in Victoriei Square, and America House, the most expensive building in Bucharest for a long time, which currently accommodates the headquarters of BCR, Cosmote, Deloitte and Tuca Zbarcea & Asociatii.

During the period of real estate boom, Ozer started to buy plots to develop its own projects, with the only project started being the Belleview complex in Sinaia, which the lawyers are attempting to finalise.

"At present around 70% of the Belleview complex is completed, with half of the apartments, i.e. one block to be ready for delivery immediately after it is connected to utilities, with the company to channel a lot of its efforts towards completing the second block (currently at the structural stage), as part of the restructuring entailed by the insolvency proceedings," adds Junger, who currently holds 33.34% of the company's shares.

The remaining shares are equally distributed between two other lawyers - Ionut-Marian Bojan, 38, and Veronica-Marinela Trifu, 35, according to data in the Official Gazette.