Ioan Ciolan, Ambient: I'm too young to consider an exit

Ioan Ciolan, of Sibiu, 40, the man who developed the biggest constructions group of Transylvania, Ambient, to 220m-euro turnover in 2008, says the ambitious plan to expand beyond Sibiu in 1997 is now helping him to survive on a market that has contracted by 20-30% in the past year.

The real size of Ambient business, started from scratch in 1993, was visible as late as the early 2008, once the merger of the 15 firms of the group was finalised. After several rebranding projects, concept changes and store resizing steps, carried out during 16 years, Ambient in late 2008 reached consolidated turnover worth 220m euros, which puts it on the 6th position in the ranking of the biggest players in the sector of construction materials distribution and home décor.

Ciolan started from scratch the network that now operates 15 shopping centres, 8 smaller stores and 4 logistic warehouses, with 1,500 employees.

The office in Sibiu where Ciolan spends 10-12 hours a day also reveals the size of Ambient business: from here one can see the entire logistic headquarters of the company, located on a 12-hectare plot of land with access to two railways. The group has a fleet of 500-600 trucks by which it sends construction materials on construction sites.

Ambient expanded beyond Sibiu in 1997 through partnerships with local investors. There are little chances that a client of Bricostore network of Bucharest has heard of Ambient, but in Transylvania the brand developed in Sibiu and subsequently expanded, step by step, in all the big cities in the region, has a strong resonance.

Ciolan says that starting as soon as 2002, he wanted his business to be different from DIY retailers that largely target occasional clients (individuals).

In the current context, though, while on retail the decline revolves around 15-20%, on the segment of professional clients the decrease goes as high as even 50%, dictating a strategy change at Ambient.

Expansion plans, which included Bucharest, led Ambient to conduct talks with EQT Swedish investment fund last year, but the negotiations stopped once the fund decided to freeze all its development projects in the Central and Eastern European region because of the crisis. There have also been foreign retailers interested in Ambient, but Ioan Ciolan says the company did not even start talks with them because "we are too young to consider an exit from the business."