French group Adeo, one of the European retail giants, with annual turnover worth more than 9 billion euros, is building the team it will use to tap into the Romanian DIY market, by opening the first Leroy Merlin store in Romania in 2010. The French recruited the former expansion manager of Praktiker, Cristian Petrescu, to supervise the development of the network, with Bucharest targeted at first. Petrescu expanded Praktiker Romania's network from zero to 25 locations between 2002-2008. The Germans are now leaders on the DIY segment, with sales of about 300 million euros.
The Romanian manager has over ten years' experience in retail and has also worked for companies such as Billa and McDonald's, handling expansion, as well.
"The first Leroy Merlin stores in Romania will open in Bucharest. My goal is to have the first local store of the network inaugurated in 2010, either in the Colosseum mall in Chitila or in another location," Petrescu said.
The local subsidiary of Leroy Merlin currently has about 30 employees and is run by a French manager. It will most likely open only one store in Bucharest this year, with the next few stores planned for the same city, Petrescu says.
The company, which is the second-largest player on the do-it-yourself market in Europe after UK's Kingfisher, therefore becomes the second retailer in this business to enter Romania despite prospects of a decline in demand on short term. The first bold launch was OBI's, which opened its first two stores in Romania at the end of 2008.
Construction supplies distribution (which includes DIY), a market put at more than 2 billion euros, showed signs of decline as early as the second half of 2008, with the decrease in sales having reached 20-30% at the end of last year, according to estimates on the market.
As far as modern retail is concerned, only the food and DIY segmen
