Passenger transport firms that announced their sale last year are staying in Romanian entrepreneurs' hands as the crisis has driven potential investors away. Two medium-sized firms on the market, located in Valcea county, Dacos, with turnover worth around 6m euros, controlled by businessman Dan Petrescu, and Antares Transport, with turnover of above 4m euros, held by Dumitru Becsenescu, did not take sales plans to an end last year and they have received no more bids amid the crisis. The sale of these firms would have marked the first deals on the passenger road transport market.

"Last year, we had two major bids, one from an Austrian firm and one from a French firm, but we didn't reach an agreement. I'm not ruling out selling the company, but I have received no other bids since autumn," said Dan Petrescu, who specified Dacos' business in January dropped by 25-30% from a year ago. Dacos has a 50-coach fleet and mainly carries out transport operations on internal routes, as well as charters on international routes, generating around 6m euros from these operations in 2008. Petrescu specified the market was frozen on the segment of coach sales, too.

At the same time, Antares Transport ceased negotiations with the international firm in the field that planned to enter the domestic market through this acquisition. "The international player postponed this decision and we're awaiting good times as this is not an appropriate moment for a sale," Dumitru Becsenescu said.

He controls Antares group of firms, which also includes a freight rail transport firm, Classfer, an LPG distributor and tourism and real estate operations. The group for last year expected 30m-euro turnover and this year projects a drop by around 10% as some real estate projects have been put on hold. "On the segment of passenger transport, though, we expect a 20% increase in RON and we count