Oil equipment producer Upet TÃ¥rgoviste is to relocate from the centre of TÃ¥rgoviste to outside the city. It hopes to derive 10 million euros from the sale of its land in the city centre, the equivalent of six months of sales for the company.
The recent surge in land prices has caused many Romanian companies to realise they are sitting on a gold mine in terms of the land and property they own in city centres for which international retailers and housing developers are willing to pay millions of euros.
a??We have about 16 hectares left for sale. If we sell it for 60 euros per square metre, that will mean about 10 million euros. We want to take six hectares outside of town where we will move our plant. The rest of the money will be for retooling,a?? said Marian Dinu, the Upet chairman.
One hectare of land around TÃ¥rgoviste used to cost up to 5 euros/square metre, meaning that Upet will spend 12 times less than the sum it will receive.
Upet already sold three hectares of land in the centre of TÃ¥rgoviste in the last six months, which earned the company around 2.3 million euros.
Two 20,000 square metre plots worth over one million euros were bought by Kaufland (the German hypermarket chain), while the third, worth one million euros, was taken over last week by a local company belonging to a Russian businessman, Trade Registry data show. a??For us retailers, location is the key element and we are willing to pay for it. Companies for which location is not so important can sell their locations and finance their development,a?? said Gunter Grieb, the general manager of Kaufland Romania.
The same solution was used by the bakery, Bega Pam Timisoara, in which Italian firm Geo-Gis is the majority shareholder. The plant will move to the south-eastern area of Timisoara, while its current location in the city centre will be taken by a Plus Discount Romania store. Plus Discount stores belong to the German retail group Tengelmann.
The Cora Granitul hypermarket, which opened in the autumn of 2003, and Cora Miorita, which is to be opened this autumn, as well as the first Kaufland store at Bucharesta??s Bucur Obor, are built on the site of former factories, though in these cases the factories ceased their activities.
Upet TÃ¥rgoviste logged first-quarter operating revenues of 4.2 million euros, almost double the value for the same period last year, amid first-quarter losses of 1.1 million euros, 20 times higher than in the previous first quarter.
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
