Florin Andronescu: from selling TVs straight from lorries to his biggest exit

Businessman Florin Andronescu, whose name has been linked to companies such as Flanco and Credisson, from the sale of which he got around 20 million euros, says his current priority is to start construction of the first Sanador hospital, for which he is interested in attracting funding.

Known as the entrepreneur who develops businesses in order to sell them, Andronescu, 52, admits this scenario could be replicated for the Sanador private medical services business, run by wife Doris Andronescu, but not at this time.

He says in an interview given to ZF that his greatest achievement is consumer finance company Credisson, which in only three years reached 50 million euros in market value, according to information provided by Andronescu. In 2005, the company was acquired by French group Cetelem, with the Romanian businessman receiving around 10 million euros from this transaction.

"This is the most interesting achievement (Credisson, i.e.) because it was a new business, on a market where many companies granted credits, but none had a vehicle dedicated to consumer loans. It was a short-lived business, we had been in discussions for three years, it saw a staggering rise and the exit was spectacular," Andronescu says.

As for Flanco, he admits it was a "slow, long-term construction, with ups and downs". In 1992, he opened the first Flanco store, having previously started to distribute colour TVs.

"The first Flanco electronics store on the busy Calea Mosilor sold TVs straight from the lorry, a queue was formed in the morning," says Andronescu.

2006 saw the merger of Flanco and Flamingo, which, for Andronescu meant the end of a business he had started 16 years before, and which had grown to 70 million euros, according to the entrepreneur.

Andronescu's latest investments are the private clinics network and credit broker Kiwi Finance. Another, project, a health insurance broker, Sanas, has been put on stand by.

As for the clinics network, whose market value he puts at 20-25 million euros, construction of a 15-20 million-euro hospital is set to start in the first half of next year. The building will have 11 floors and a 9,000 square metre area.

On the private medical services market, which is worth over 400 million euros, Andronescu competes with entrepreneurs such as Mihail Marcu (MedLife), Wargha Enayati (CMU), Robert Serban (Gral), Erghin Hagicalil (Romar).