The building behind Unirea Shopping Center in Bucharest, which used to house the Univers'all supermarket until recently, will be taken over by Carrefour, Billa or Gimrom, the operator of the G'market network, within the week. Top contender for this space is Carrefour, which could open an outlet there in the next three months.
Univers'all Trading, the operator of the Univers'all network, was declared insolvent by the court early this year.
"Talks are being held for the takeover of the space with the Carrefour, Billa and G'market networks; one of these offers will be chosen in one week," sources close to this business say.
At the same time, businessman Razvan Petrovici, who controlled the 14-strong store network until last year, says, "the sale of that space is out of the question," though he admits he is in talks to sell the operations and rent the location.
The operators of the Carrefour network seem closest to signing a deal to take over the space. Company sources say, "personnel recruitment for that location has already begun. It could take about three months till the opening of the store."
Billa Romania representatives in turn lend support to the version having Carrefour as buyer, and say that the location in question is no longer attractive to them.
"We got the offer for this store, but we found the price too high and felt the retail space has some shortcomings, such as the underground car park, which women generally dislike," said Wolfgang Janisch, Billa Romania CEO.
The representatives of G'market could not be reached by the time the story was ready for print to provide additional comment. This would not be their first deal with Univers'all, as they bought the operations of the store in Iasi for about one million euros at the end of last year.
This way, it is precisely the international retail chains, which through their aggressive expansion policies caused the downfall of the Univers'all network and its closure eventually, that are now the main occupants of the former outlets.
After deciding to close down the network, Razvan Petrovici started selling it piece by piece, parting with the locations in Sibiu, Iasi, Targu Mures, Suceava and Tarnaveni in less than one month. Besides supermarkets, the network also included four neighbourhood stores in Constanta, which it operated under the Uni'all brand. These four stores could be sold in one transaction to the operators of the Profi network.
On the other hand, CDE Interex, part of the Intermarche French group was the first buyer of a Univers'all store, when it acquired the location in Sibiu. The list of Univers'all buyers also includes Romstal, which bought the buildings in Targu Mures and Suceava in a more than 5 million-euro deal.
If they opened a Carrefour outlet in the Piata Unirii area, the operators of the network could score major points on the domestic retail market for the second time, considering that the Orhideea hypermarket is now third in Europe in terms of sales volume, the company officials say.
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