Arcom, one of the leading construction companies before 1990 hasseen its turnover plummet, to less than 10 million euros, afour-fold decline against last year.
The company was taken over last year by businessman George Becali,owner of Steaua football club, and Arcom has not won any majorcontracts on the constructions market, with the number of employeesdown over six-fold, to 77.
"The company will only build projects for George Becali, and wewill make a fresh start in 2010. This year we cleaned up and cutthe number of employees to a minimum, we couldn't cut any furtherif we wanted to have a base for growth," one of the members ofArcom's Board of Directors, who wished to remain anonymous, toldZF.
The company has not earned any new contracts this year on theRomanian market and lived off contracts sealed in previous years."We were late in making the decision to reduce the number ofemployees, because we kept hoping to win a big contract. We tookpart in tenders this year, but, having failed to earn any contractby August, we started making massive cuts to the number ofemployees and kept only the management and the engineers," says thequoted source.
The Arcom management intends to sell its 10% stake in plasterboardproducer Lafarge Arcom Gips, as well as other shares in companieswhere Arcom is a minority shareholder. According to marketinformation, Arcom was offered 1.7 million euros by Lafarge for 10%in Lafarge Arcom Gips, equivalent to 56 euros/share. Lafargerepresentatives did not wish to comment on the transaction.
"We commissioned an audit in order to see how much Lafarge ArcomGips shares are worth because we received an offer that we considerto be too small. Lafarge has a pre-emptive right to buy the stake,but we are also considering negotiating with other producers orinvestment funds, if an agreement is not reached," says the Arcomrepresentative.
Lafarge has up until now invested over 20 million euros in theplasterboard plant held by Lafarge Arcom Gips in Bucharest, whichenabled it to increase its stake to 90% because Arcom did not takepart in the investment.
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