Carrefour gets space for first supermarket in Bucharest from Dimofte

French-held Carrefour rented a space owned by a company of businessman Radu Dimofte in order to enter the Bucharest supermarket segment. The company announced it would open a store in Bucharest's Gorjului square, with representatives of local authorities specifying that the supermarket that Carrefour was setting up in the western area of the city was located in a rented store from Practic SA. "This space accommodated a food store before," said representatives of the 6th sector City Hall. Dimofte holds 48.6% in Practic SA, being one of the biggest owners of retail space in Bucharest, and is known in the business world as partner of Gabriel Popoviciu, owner of Baneasa real estate project in northern Bucharest. Almost half the retail spaces in Bucharest are held by five local entrepreneurs, among whom Siminel Andrei, Alain Bonte, and Raluca Petcu, according to data on the real estate market.
Carrefour, the largest hypermarket operator in Romania, with 1.13 billion euros, entered the supermarket in 2007 by taking over Artima from Enterprise Investors.