Owner of ERA park in Iasi has its accounts frozen

9 dec 2009 Ziarul Financiar

Ermes Holding, held by Cypriot group Omilos, owner of ERA Shopping City retail park in Iasi, has had access to its bank deposits blocked due to a 1.1 million-RON (around 250,000-euro) debt, according to data on the website of the Bucharest Court of Law. The sales decline and difficulties in collecting rent are causing increasingly more conflicts between shopping centre owners and banks, retailers, and even construction companies, which materialise in insolvency filings and frozen accounts, as is the case of the ERA project in Iasi. "The court of law grants the petition filed by claimant SC Viarom Construct SA (...) against defendant SC Ermes Holding SRL based in Bucharest. (...). It rules that an attachment be placed on the debtor's movable goods - bank deposits up to the amount of 1,101, 826,72 RON," reads a ruling of the Bucharest court of law from November 13. Viarom Construct, with 22.6 million euros in turnover in 2008, was one of the builders of project in Iasi, which includes a Carrefour hypermarket, a Praktiker store and a shopping gallery, and was opened in the autumn of 2008. "We have an ongoing commercial dispute with Viarom on the quality of the construction. I cannot comment any further on this matter," said Graham Kilbane, general manager of Omilos, who did not, however, confirm that the company had its accounts frozen.
According to the web page of the Bucharest Court of Law, other companies to have filed petitions to have Ermes Holding declared insolvent include Constructii Feroviare Iasi - Grup Colas, Gama Electro Constructii and Chapman Taylor, with some of these cases having court dates set for the first part of 2010. Chapman Taylor officials could not be reached for comment.