The Turkish shareholders of Ozer Construction, which enteredinsolvency proceedings on November 1st, have sold their stakes to agroup of three Romanian lawyers.
Turkish-held Ozer was among the first foreign builders to enterthe Romanian market over ten years ago, when it startedconstruction of Romania's first mall - Bucuresti Mall in Vitan -for another Turkish-held company - Anchor Grup.
A large number of projects followed, bringing hundreds ofmillions of euros into Ozer's accounts, up until this year, when,following the debt accumulated, the company's shareholdersrequested the company to file for insolvency, and, more recently,the company's lawyers took over the stakes, according to datapublished in the Official Gazette.
"We just wanted to solve a problem. Either somebody was going tohandle it, or a big scandal was to follow. I have been working withOzer since 2001 or so and I knew how things stood as far as inflowsand debt were concerned at Belleview (the residential complexstarted by Ozer in Sinaia i.e.)," says Veronica Junger, one of thethree lawyers that became a shareholder of Ozer Construction.
She did not provide information on the financial resourcesavailable in order to continue the company's operations.
After the first information emerged about Ozer's financialtrouble, several buyers of apartments in the Belleview complexstarted to seek information in the press, because companyrepresentatives could no longer be reached on the phone or at thecompany's headquarters.
Ozer Construction posted a 43 million-euro turnover in 2008,whilst its debt reached 34 million euros, according to data on thewebsite of the Finance Ministry. Since 2005, the company's debt haddoubled from one year to the next, starting from three millioneuros. In 2006 it rose to 5.8 million euros, 16 million euros in2007, while revenues did not record the same rise.
Ozer started out as a contractor with its portfolio includingtwo buildings representative for Bucharest's office market - EuropeHouse, the headquarters of Orange in Victoriei Square, and AmericaHouse, 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 plotsto develop its own projects, with the only project started beingthe Belleview complex in Sinaia, which the lawyers are attemptingto finalise.
"At present around 70% of the Belleview complex is completed,with half of the apartments, i.e. one block to be ready fordelivery immediately after it is connected to utilities, with thecompany to channel a lot of its efforts towards completing thesecond block (currently at the structural stage), as part of therestructuring 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 otherlawyers - Ionut-Marian Bojan, 38, and Veronica-Marinela Trifu, 35,according to data in the Official Gazette.
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