French group Adeo, one of the European retail giants, withannual turnover worth more than 9 billion euros, is building theteam it will use to tap into the Romanian DIY market, by openingthe first Leroy Merlin store in Romania in 2010. The Frenchrecruited the former expansion manager of Praktiker, CristianPetrescu, to supervise the development of the network, withBucharest targeted at first. Petrescu expanded Praktiker Romania'snetwork from zero to 25 locations between 2002-2008. The Germansare now leaders on the DIY segment, with sales of about 300 millioneuros.
The Romanian manager has over ten years' experience in retailand has also worked for companies such as Billa and McDonald's,handling expansion, as well.
"The first Leroy Merlin stores in Romania will open inBucharest. My goal is to have the first local store of the networkinaugurated in 2010, either in the Colosseum mall in Chitila or inanother location," Petrescu said.
The local subsidiary of Leroy Merlin currently has about 30employees and is run by a French manager. It will most likely openonly one store in Bucharest this year, with the next few storesplanned for the same city, Petrescu says.
The company, which is the second-largest player on thedo-it-yourself market in Europe after UK's Kingfisher, thereforebecomes the second retailer in this business to enter Romaniadespite prospects of a decline in demand on short term. The firstbold launch was OBI's, which opened its first two stores in Romaniaat the end of 2008.
Construction supplies distribution (which includes DIY), amarket put at more than 2 billion euros, showed signs of decline asearly as the second half of 2008, with the decrease in sales havingreached 20-30% at the end of last year, according to estimates onthe market.
As far as modern retail is concerned, only the food and DIYsegments have seen new players entering the market since the onsetof the crisis.
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