SPAR owners enter insolvency

SPAR, the third-largest Romanian food retailer on the domestic market, with 44m-euro turnover last year, has been undergoing reorganisation under the insolvency law at the request of its shareholders, Ioan Cuc and Floare Cuc, according to data the Arad Court of Law sent ZF. Contacted by phone and e-mail, Cuc brothers said they would not comment on this issue. The network’s owners, who also hold distribution company Astral Impex, opened the first supermarket in 2006 under an operating licence taken from Dutch retailer SPAR and have aggressively expanded by opening 20 units in less than 3 years. Expansion was suddenly halted this year, when the biggest unit of the network, in Targu Mures, was closed down. Representatives for SPAR Netherlands would not comment on this issue, either.