NNDKP partners with Casa de Insolventa Transilvania on this year's hottest market

Law firm Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen (NNDKP) and Casa de Insolventa Transilvania (Transilvania Insolvency Firm) established a permanent partnership to strengthen their position on an insolvency and corporate restructuring market that skyrocketed in 2009 and will continue to generate contracts for consulting companies in the coming years.

"In the first half of this year at least, constructions and retail will continue to plunge, at a faster rate than before. Last year construction companies had older projects, but they were completed and no new ones were started. Unemployment is on the rise, which means some people will not have the available resources to buy, so retail sales will not be able to grow, either," explains Ion Nestor, referring to two of the sectors that generated the highest number of insolvencies last year.

Flanco, Leonardo, and PIC in retail, Mivan Kier and Ozer in the construction sector are just a few of the insolvency cases that kept consultants busy and shook investors' trust to a certain degree.

Casa de Insolventa Transilvania, which has 60 employees of whom 15 are insolvency practitioners, was designated to restructure a series of major insolvent companies, such as Leonardo, construction materials distributor Direct, Cristi Borcea's charcuterie business Crimbo Prod Carn, and electronics & home appliances retailer Flanco.

The two companies established joint professional and administrative committees and will have marketing and communication activities within the same group. NNDKP has a litigation department consisting of 29 lawyers, some of whom are specialised in insolvency.

"As long as the economic trend continues to be a downward one, there will be further cases of insolvency. There are still business owners who dream of unjustified prices. We opened an office in Bucharest in order to have better coverage of Romania, and I think this will be the company's command centre," explains Andrei Cionca, partner with Casa de Insolventa Transilvania (CITR).

Last year saw over 20,000 insolvency cases, with most of these companies headed towards bankruptcy. Only part of big companies will seek to reorganise by restructuring their businesses and through significant capital injections.

NNDKP is one of the largest law firms on the Romanian market, with 115 lawyers and almost 15 million euros in revenues in 2008. Casa de Insolventa Transilvania handled 150 insolvency cases last year, with overall assets worth 200 million euros.