Arabesque, the largest distributor of construction and finishing materials on the domestic market, intends to develop a network of five sales centres in Bulgaria, after it recently opened its first sales and logistic centre in Sofia.
The value of this year's investments is expected to amount to 27m euros, which includes both the Romanian market and foreign markets, whilst the company (founded in Galati) operates in the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria. After opening its new centre in Sofia (which covers a total warehousing area of 17,500 square metres), Arabesque's next main targets are Varna, Burgas, Plovdiv and Veliko Trnovo.
"We will open 5 centres in Bulgaria in the coming years, which will operate under the Budmax brand. Like in Romania, our target market includes construction companies, architects, residential and office space decorating firms, and we intend to distribute more than 25,000 products through these centres," stated Arabesque officials.
The Bulgarian centres will operate under the Budmax brand, which belonged to one of the top 3 players on the Ukrainian business-to-business construction materials market (which registered turnover worth 50m-euro in 2006) and which Arabesque acquired in June 2006.
"Investments operated in the Bulgarian constructions sector are estimated at 2.3-2.6bn euros, which accounts for a third of overall investments in Romania," explained Arabesque representatives.
This year, Arabesque expects to generate turnover worth above 450m euros, up 30-35% year-on-year. For the future, the company targets turnover worth around 1bn euros by 2011-2013.
Arabesque, founded in 1994 by businessman Virgil Cezar Rapotan, specialises in the distribution of construction and finishing materials to companies and professional users. Only 5% of the company's customers are natural persons.
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