Ioan Ciolan, of Sibiu, 40, the man who developed the biggestconstructions group of Transylvania, Ambient, to 220m-euro turnoverin 2008, says the ambitious plan to expand beyond Sibiu in 1997 isnow helping him to survive on a market that has contracted by20-30% 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 15firms of the group was finalised. After several rebrandingprojects, concept changes and store resizing steps, carried outduring 16 years, Ambient in late 2008 reached consolidated turnoverworth 220m euros, which puts it on the 6th position in the rankingof the biggest players in the sector of construction materialsdistribution and home décor.
Ciolan started from scratch the network that now operates 15shopping centres, 8 smaller stores and 4 logistic warehouses, with1,500 employees.
The office in Sibiu where Ciolan spends 10-12 hours a day alsoreveals the size of Ambient business: from here one can see theentire logistic headquarters of the company, located on a12-hectare plot of land with access to two railways. The group hasa fleet of 500-600 trucks by which it sends construction materialson construction sites.
Ambient expanded beyond Sibiu in 1997 through partnerships withlocal investors. There are little chances that a client ofBricostore network of Bucharest has heard of Ambient, but inTransylvania the brand developed in Sibiu and subsequentlyexpanded, step by step, in all the big cities in the region, has astrong resonance.
Ciolan says that starting as soon as 2002, he wanted hisbusiness to be different from DIY retailers that largely targetoccasional clients (individuals).
In the current context, though, while on retail the declinerevolves around 15-20%, on the segment of professional clients thedecrease goes as high as even 50%, dictating a strategy change atAmbient.
Expansion plans, which included Bucharest, led Ambient toconduct talks with EQT Swedish investment fund last year, but thenegotiations stopped once the fund decided to freeze all itsdevelopment projects in the Central and Eastern European regionbecause of the crisis. There have also been foreign retailersinterested in Ambient, but Ioan Ciolan says the company did noteven start talks with them because "we are too young to consider anexit from the business."
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