September 19 (SeeNews) - Romanian furniture manufacturer and retailer Mobexpert Group opened on Wednesday a 10 million euro ($13.97 million) hypermarket in Bulgaria's capital Sofia, its first hypermarket abroad, as part of its plans for expansion in the region.
“We expect to reach a 15-18% market share in Bulgaria in the next four years, and our investment to become profitable in three years,” Mobexpert Group president Dan Sucu told reporters. Some 80% of the investment was financed by the Greek Alpha Bank.
The hypermarket is the largest Romanian furniture retail investment outside Romania. It covers an area of some 11,000 square metres and has a parking lot for 150 cars. It will employ 120. It is the sixth outlet in Mobexpert's network and the first outside Romania to target home furniture and decorative products sales. The group has office furniture stores in Sofia and Belgrade. In Romania, it has five hypermarkets and 27 stores.
The company plans to open another two hypermarkets in Bulgaria by 2011 and a total of twenty hypermarkets and stores in the region.
“We will open another 20 hypermarkets and stores in the next five years, in which we will invest 40 to 50 million euro. The invested money [in each site] will be less [than in the first Bulgarian hypermarket] because we will rent commercial areas in trade centers, instead of constructing stores," Sucu added.
Mobexpert Group was set up in 1993 and now employs some 4,500. It comprises 10 furniture factories, five import and logistics companies, and a real estate investment firm, Domus Mex.Mobexpert exports its output to western Europe, including France, Germany and the Netherlands.
($=0.7158 euro)