Barbut, Adeplast: I will sell the business when I get to no. 1

Marcel Barbut, owner of construction materials producer AdePlast in Oradea, entered the local market as an "Austrian" investor in 1996 and, 14 years later, became no. 3 on the mortar producers market. Although he has so far received six takeover offers, Barbut has turned them down because he does not like to work for someone else, but wants to sell the business when he gets to no. 1, because at 54 he "can no longer move mountains".

At the entrance to the AdePlast plant near Ploiesti, one can feel the end of the crisis approaching: trucks are going in and out of the biggest dry mortar producer in Romania. "Today (24 March) 41 trucks are waiting to be loaded, after 23 have already been loaded (at 4 PM), with a further 27 trucks in Oradea. Back in 2008, when we had only one plant in Oradea, we would sell 41 truckloads a day in our peak period," Barbut says.

AdePlast completed a 16 million-euro investment in building a mortar plant near Ploiesti at the end of 2008, the second production facility after the one in Oradea.