INTERVIEW - Germany's Rehau Bulgarian Unit Still Aims for 15% Rise in Turnover in 2009 But Could Be Thwarted By Turmoil

The company sees its turnover this year rising to 19 million euro ($24.3 million) from 17 million euro in 2007, the chief executive officer of Rehau's Bulgarian unit, Plamen Penchev, told SeeNews in a recent interview.

"We are very positive on Rehau's development next year, priority for us will be the sanitation of buildings and renewable and energy efficiency projects," Penchev said.

The company has no serious concerns about a possible decrease in orders as it works with more than 300 financially strong corporate clients, Penchev said. "We have also tight credit management and we allow payment in installments and rescheduling after a solid check of the client," he added.

Rehau Bulgaria has previously forecast a 15% rise in annual turnover for the longer term but with the changed situation now it is uncertain if the 15% growth target will be achieved in the longer run, Rehau manager for southeast Europe Peter Danig told SeeNews in the same interview.

"At the end, we want always to grow the minimum the market grows. If the whole window market grows 10% or 15%, we also want to grow at least 10% or 15%," Danig said.

Sales to the construction sector in Bulgaria, which has already started to slow down, make up 80% of the company's annual turnover and sales in industry sectors the rest, Penchev said.

Rehau Bulgaria, apart from continuing selling its traditional products like window and door profile systems, in which it has a 12% market share, plans to focus on marketing its geothermal systems for heating and cooling, heat pump systems and solar panels for heating.

The company, which also offers plastic products for the furniture, construction and automotive industries and for infrastructure needs, will aim to further expand in the infrastructure market, which in the coming 10 years will offer great potential, Danig said.

"Our strategy is always to be a supplier of complete solutions, not only single products but a complete solution," Danig said.

The company is currently working on 12 projects for providing geothermal solutions, mainly to administrative buildings.

Rehau, which entered Bulgaria in 1996, recently opened a 3.6 million euro administrative building and a warehouse in the capital Sofia. The company is a tenant of two warehouse facilities in Sofia and has a warehouse of its own in the country’s third-largest city of Varna, on the Black Sea.

Rehau (www.rehau.com), set up in 1948 as a family company, has 129 sales offices, 41 plants, 16 adminsitrative facilities and five logistics centres worldwide. In Europe, it operates a network of 87 sales offices, 26 plants, 11 administrative facilities and four logistics centres. The group set up its headquarters for southeast Europe in Guntramsdorf, Austria, in 1996. It develops, manufactures and sells plastic products for the construction, industrial and automotive industries.

($ = 0.7831 euro)