No. 19, May 30 - June 5

LINKS

A taxing conundrumTwo new measuresare intended to makepaying taxes easier forcitizens» page 10-11

PROPERTY

Real lifeAdama’s VP Asher Laxtakes the pulse of theresidential market» page 12

TALENT

Taste for businessDinu Pistalu’s localeatery Babadochia iscarving out a slice ofthe market» page 15

PLUS

Roberto’s reloaded –but will the Hilton’sItalian sate our critic?» page 18

PLUS

The BR Club mastersthe Art of investing» page 19

Dominic Bruynseels, CEO ofBCR, talks about his bank’splans to boost lending on theRomanian market after adifficult 2010 »page 8

LOAN RANGERLOAN RANGER

LANDMARK: A towering Bucharest institution for four decades now, Business Review marks the InterContinental’s fortieth birthday with a pictorial trip downmemory lane, taking in the story and traditions of this iconic hotel »page 16-17

ROMANIA’S PREMIERE BUSINESS WEEKLY May 30 - June 5, 2011 / VOLUME 16, NUMBER 19

NEWS 3www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

NEWS in brief

RETAILRuby Food brings Second Cupcafe to RomaniaRuby Food, the owner of the Ruby Tues-day franchise for Romania, has opened itsfirst Second Cup coffee shop in Romania.Located on Bucharest’s Decebal Boule-vard, the venue is close to the RubyTuesday restaurant.

Company representatives said the in-vestment in a location such as this canreach up to USD 250,000. Ruby Foodplans to open five coffee shops in Roma-nia by 2014 depending on the country’seconomic situation.

PROPERTYPointPark Properties opensnew Romanian officePointPark Properties (P3), the developerand administrator of logistic parks, has of-ficially opened its Romanian office inBucharest. Representatives said the newoffice will allow the company to pro-vide support for the build-to-suit projectsit has in the pipeline, especially thePointPark Cluj-Turda project, to expandits service range and focus on increasingits local client base.

P3 is currently administering assets in11 European countries and has its own of-fices in Prague, Paris, Frankfurt, Luxem-bourg, London, Bratislava, and Warsaw,making Bucharest the eighth one.

Ambient ups turnover to EUR105 million in 2010Ambient reported a EUR 105 millionturnover for 2010, EUR 2 million morethan in 2010, the Romanian DIY retailerhas announced. According to companyrepresentatives, the results are the out-come of the business restructuringprocess started in 2009.

Ambient is currently made up of twodivisions targeting the firm’s main typesof clients: retail and distribution. The re-tail division comprises 12 commercialcenters, while the distribution one cov-ers 11 work points and construction ma-terials warehouses. The company, whichis entirely Romanian owned, was estab-lished in 1993 and opened its first DIYstore in 2002 in Sibiu.

ModaTim lays foundation offourth building in CBDCModaTim Investment, the developer ofthe City Business Center project, hasstarted construction works for the fourthbuilding. The new A class office block willbe built in downtown Timisoara, close toSquare 700, next to the three functional buildings in the project.

The City Business Development Cen-ter (CBDC) accessed non-refundable EUfinancing of RON 29.3 million (approxi-mately EUR 6.9 million), the largest sumobtained so far by a private project in thewestern region. The building is expectedto be delivered in June 2012, and will havea 9,500-sqm rentable area for office andservice space. “Out of the 25 companies

that the CBDC will host, we estimatethat 75 percent of them will be localSMEs in the IT industry, but also fromother innovative areas,” said Ovidiu San-dor, CEO of ModaTim Investment.

TELECOMTotal number of mobile usersreaches 24.6 millionDespite the difficult economic condi-tions in the second half of 2010, mobiletelephony, internet and television serv-ices posted growth during the period. Mo-bile broadband internet connections in-creased by 21 percent to 4 million, ofwhich 1 million were connections viamodems/cards/USB, according to Ed-uard Lovin, executive manager for regu-lations in ANCOM (the National Author-ity for Administration and Regulation inCommunications).The number of fixedinternet connections reached 3 million,up 2 percent. The number of mobileusers rose by 1 percent to 24.6 millionusers. Total voice traffic in the mobile net-works continued to grow to 26.5 billionminutes, up 4 percent. However, this isthree times less than the growth postedin the first half of 2010.

The average monthly voice traffic peractive SIM card reached 3 hours and 1minute, while the average monthly num-ber of sent SMS stayed steady at 27. At thesame time, the typical duration of a callin the mobile networks is 2 minutes and12 seconds.

IMAGE of the weekWild horses protesters nag government into Letea dismountLocal and international media and NGO uproar over the fate of 49abandoned horses in Romania’s Letea forest near the DanubeDelta spurred the bridled government into action as most of thehorses were rescued from the slaughter house and returned tothe wilderness. The initial plan was to sell the animals to an Ital-ian firm for meat. But the harnessing of media power and a flash-mob demonstration outside government HQ saved most of them.

WEEKin numbers

1,000streets and bicycle routes in

Bucharest will undergo repairworks starting June 1

3,000Transit Connects were manufac-tured by Ford in its Craiova plant

in the first four months of thisyear

3,000jobs will be cut by CFR Marfa (thecommodities railways operator)starting July in a restructuring

move

1,000

3,000

3,000

3Q Karim Kheirat

Country manager, ICAP Romania

What is the nature of ICAP’s partnershipwith Dun & Bradstreet and how will it im-pact the business in Romania?Under a long-term agreement, ICAP willbecome the exclusive provider of Dun &Bradstreet’s (D&B) services in Romania,Greece and Bulgaria, supplying, amongstother services, information on companiesfrom 220 countries. Likewise, D&B will dis-tribute information on Romanian, Greekand Bulgarian firms, supplied by ICAP. TheD&B credit reports will also include theICAP Rating, which is recognized by theEuropean Central Bank.

The effects will be very positive for ICAP.We developed the company’s portfolio suc-cessfully with banks and leasing companiesand last year local companies. With thisagreement we will serve through D&B theinternational companies in Romania usingD&B information ordered by their HQ.

What ICAP service makes the highestcontribution to the company’s localturnover? ICAP Group has four business lines: creditrisk services which include debt collection;management consulting; people solutions(executive search, training, leasing of em-ployees); and marketing solutions. Today,the highest contribution to the group’sturnover in Romania comes from debt col-lection, with strong development in the out-sourcing of debt collection in B-to-B. Thefastest growing activity is business infor-mation. Our main success is the credit riskassessment of companies. When welaunched our activity on the Romanianmarket, there was initially confusion due toeasy access to financial data. Most firmsthought that they were able to processthese data using a philosophy of credit riskmanagement. The crisis demonstrated thelimits of this approach. In the past mostCFOs or sales managers told us that theyknew their clients very well or that theywere not risky. This is no longer the case.

The turnover of ICAP Group in Romania(ICAP Romania and Cycle European) wasEUR 3.5 million in 2010, with 75 percent forCycle. We plan to have a EUR 4.5 millionturnover in 2011.

Do you plan on adding new services orbusiness lines for the local market? Our strategy is to implement the group’sservices in each country. We recently de-veloped two new services locally: GoogleAdWords and Findbiz. ICAP Group is an au-thorized Google reseller. In Greece, lastyear we had sales of more than EUR 1.5million through Google AdWords.

Courtesy of Icap

4 NEWS www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

Danone Romania saw its sales go up10 percent last year against 2009, toRON 476 million (approximately

EUR 113 million). The company’s netprofit also rose in 2010, said Stephane Ba-toux, general director of Danone Roma-nia and the Adriatic Region, withoutmentioning the actual figures.

The 0.6 economic growth announcedby the National Institute of Statistics forthe first quarter of 2011 has not had anyimpact on consumption so far, said Ba-toux, adding that the first results couldappear in the last quarter of the year. Hewent on to argue that reducing VATshould, in his opinion, be the first meas-ure taken in order to boost consumption.

“It is the first solution that comes to mind.Romania is among the EU member coun-tries with the highest rates of VAT. I be-lieve that even a decrease of one per-centage point would help,” said the coun-try manager.

Talking about last year’s turnover,Batoux said that innovation and promo-tions were the main growth drivers andthat this strategy would continuethroughout 2011. “We kept prices at the

FOOD & BEVERAGE

same level in 2010 so the increase camefrom higher sales volumes,” added Bog-dan Ioachim, communication directorat Danone Romania.

In 2010, the French firm investedRON 17 million locally (approximatelyEUR 4 million), focusing on the devel-opment of industrial capacity, technolo-gy, logistics and distribution. Some of themoney was invested into the ReachingWest program, a program through whichDanone helps partner farms increasetheir milk collection and quality. A sim-ilar investment budget is planed for thisyear when Danone intends to increase theproduction capacity of its local factorynear Bucharest. “We have seen a coupleof export opportunities but we plan to in-crease production mainly because the lo-cal market is growing,” said Batoux. In2010 Danone upped its market share onthe fresh dairy market to 58 percent.

In 2010 the local fresh dairy marketwent up by 3 percent but consumption re-mains relatively low, especially when itcomes to yogurt, said Danone officials.Romanians ate on average 3.46 kg of yo-gurt in 2010, whereas in neighboringBulgaria the average was 11.14 kg percapita. Batoux says that yogurt con-sumption is so low in Romania that thecrisis was hardly noticeable. He esti-mates that in the following five to tenyears consumption could double.

“In Bulgaria, for example, eating yogurtis in the national DNA. In Romania it willtake time to boost consumption,” Batouxcommented.

The Danone factory in Bucharest pro-duces about 1.3 million products everyday and covers 90 percent of the volumessold in Romania. Three percent of pro-duction goes to export, mainly to coun-tries from the Adriatic region, Bulgariaand the Republic of Moldova.Danone has 740 employees in Romaniaand sells 70 types of product. ∫

Simona Bazavan

AVIATION

EC opens investigation into state aidin Romanian air transport sector

Stephane Batoux, general director ofDanone Romania & the Adriatic Region

The European Commission hasopened two in-depth investigationsunder EU State aid rules into a Ro-

manian support scheme for investmentsin regional airports that aim to verifywhether rebates and discounts granted bythe Timisoara airport to some airlines dis-tort competition. The Commission isparticularly investigating the agreementsconcluded between the Timisoara airportand low-cost carrier Wizz Air, whichcould have given the latter an unfaireconomic advantage over its competitors.

The EC is examining whether the an-nual subsidies granted to the Timisoaraairport only serve to reduce the operator’scurrent expenditures. “In the absence ofa general economic interest purpose, thiswould be incompatible with EU rules asit would provide an unfair advantage tothe beneficiary with regard to its com-

petitors, who have to operate without aid,”said EC officials.

At issue are the contractual relationsbetween Timisoara airport and Wizz Air,namely a marketing agreement signed in2008 and the non-payment of airportcharges amounting to EUR 2.6 million aswell as additional rebates of 72 to 85percent of all airport charges for large air-craft (above 70 tons maximum take-offweight). The EC’s concern is that suchpreferential treatment may have the ef-fect of forcing the only competitor of WizzAir on some routes out of the market.

The overall investigation will probewhether the public financing given to re-gional airports meets “a clearly definedobjective of general interest, given the ap-parent oversupply of airport services inRomania,” an announcement from thecommission indicated. ∫

Danone Romania reports 10 percent turnover increase for 2010

Courtesy of Danone

6 NEWS www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

The local branch of cigarette pro-ducer Phillip Morris Internationalhas a new managing director,

Sergey Slipcenko, who took the helm ofthe company this January. Speaking at apress conference last week, he said thatcigarette smuggling in Romania has fall-en to 14.7 percent from the staggering 36percent registered last year. The MDadded that the company’s sales havetherefore increased and that his mainmission is to take the firm to the top po-sition on the local market.

Slipcenko has held various manage-ment positions in marketing and sales, in-cluding in the Ukraine. There he wit-nessed the rise of the company fromthird to first place. His long-term goal isto repeat that feat in Romania and, headded, he will stay here “for as long as ittakes” to do so.

Slipcenko added that PMI does not in-tend to extend its product portfolio in Ro-mania for the moment, but to focus on itsexisting brands. He also spoke about achange in the company’s distributionsystem, which now uses an external lo-gistics service and functions with a trackand trace system, which allows the track-ing of any products that are diverted forsale in other markets than the designat-ed one.

The factory in Otopeni, which theMD said ranked third in the world interms of the quality of products manu-factured there, was also discussed at theconference. Currently, 80 percent of itsoutput is exported, with over 90 percentof these exports going to Italy. Since 1997,EUR 120 million has been invested in thedevelopment of this factory, which facedan uncertain future in 2010 and wastemporarily closed on account of thesmuggling issues.

The factory also produced for Japan

TOBACCO

this year, for an estimated two monthsand a quantity of 250-350 million ciga-rettes. No Romanian tobacco is used atthe plant, since the local production is ofpoor quality.

Issues such as the EU’s project to bancigarette branding or oblige manufacturerto use the same packaging were dis-cussed by corporate affairs director, An-drei Vasilescu. He argued that such ameasure would lead to bogus productsand would infringe the right to intellec-tual property.

Vasilescu applauded the formation ofan inter-ministerial council dedicatedspecifically to issues connected with thecigarette market, saying this was neces-sary, given the restrictive legislation andsmuggling situation. In the EU, contra-band products make up around 10 per-cent of the market and this is the targetset for the local market as well, Vasiles-cu added. The financial results registeredin 2010 were also disclosed

In 2010, Philip Morris Trading regis-tered in Romania a turnover of over RON2 billion, a net profit of just under RON 30million and total revenues of more thanRON 2 billion. Phillip Morris Romaniarecorded a turnover of over RON 139 mil-lion, a net profit of more than RON 23million and total revenues of aboveRON 147 million.

In Romania, the company currentlyholds only a quarter of the total marketand ranks second after its main com-petitor, British American Tobacco. JapanTobacco International (JTI) is third. Thebest sold PMI brand both locally and in-ternationally is Marlboro. PMI has an es-timated 800 permanent employees lo-cally and, Slipcenko stated, no new re-cruitment is being considered for themoment. ∫

Corina Dumitrescu

Cigarette smuggling falls to 15percent, says Philip Morris

Making efforts to stub out smuggling: Sergey Slipcenko, new MD of PMI

Photo: Laurentiu Obae

NEWS 7www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

Lacerta Winery uncorks EUR 8mln vine estate in Dealu Mare

WINES

Premium wine producer Lacerta Win-ery has officially opened its vine es-tate in Fintesti, in the Dealu Mare re-

gion, following a total investment of ap-proximately EUR 8 million. The busi-ness was set up in 2003 and is owned byfour foreign investors, three Austrianand one German.

The investment covers the acquisitionof 82 ha of vineyard and its replanting, thebuilding of a 2,000-sqm complex whichincludes modern production facilitiesand a wine cellar as well as a shop and awine tasting unit. Lacerta Winery has alsorefurbished the Dorobantu Manor Housewhich was designed by Romanian archi-tect Ion Mincu and built in 1901 on thefirst 11 ha plot the investors bought. Approximately 25 percent of the moneyinvested in the business comes from EU funds and the Romanian authorities,Walter Friedl, representative of the owners, told BR on a previous occa-sion.

This year the company plans to makeover EUR 1 million from attracting touriststo the estate. “With this investment wealso plan to boost local tourism throughpartnerships with local pensions andhotels to offer accommodation for ourvisitors (…). Presently we have reserva-tions from groups of foreign tourists andbusinesspeople who come to Romania,”said Friedl.

The businessman, who has been in

Romania for the past 11 years, working forthe Austrian Embassy to Bucharest andinsurer Uniqa, says he is confident thatnew investors will soon follow him intothe region.

Lacerta Winery entered the local winefield in February by launching nine vari-eties of premium dry wine. The localscene is currently the company’s priori-ty. As for the local market for premiumwines, Friedl thinks that there is plentyof room for growth.

“Look in various restaurants inBucharest. People want to buy quality Ro-manian wine but it is either not availableor it is poorly promoted so they end upbuying Chilean or French wines,”he said.

In 2010 the local wine market rangedbetween 5 and 30 percent on various seg-ments, according to some market re-ports, with sales falling to about EUR 400million. Despite this decrease, investorsare confident that things will turn aroundand that there is high potential, especiallyfor exports.

In addition to foreign investors, in thepast years this has led some local wine afi-cionados to turn their passion into abusiness. Central bank governor MugurIsarescu, former justice minister ValeriuStoica, businessmen Jean Valvis, Sebas-tian Ghita and Mihai Miron are just a fewsuch. ∫

Simona Bazavan

Value of local digital market reachedEUR 38 mln in 2010, Hyperactive finds

MEDIA

Local digital agency Hyperactive, partof Lowe group, has launched itsDigital Factbook, which contains

an analysis of the local digital market. Thetotal value of the 2010 market is esti-mated to have reached EUR 38 million, di-vided between display media (47 percent),creative services (25 percent), perform-ance media (20 percent) and mobile (8percent).

Three trends seem to be continuous-ly changing the communication land-scape, the first of which is social media. InRomania, Facebook has reached criticalmass, reports the Digital Factbook, reach-ing 42.5 percent of the online population,compared to 10 percent in 2008. Mean-

while, 11 percent of internet surfers are us-ing the micro-blogging platform Twitter,compared to practically zero percent in2008. Moreover, it appears that conver-sion rates from Facebook fan-pages are upto five times higher than from othersources of traffic.

A second trend noted in the report isthat users in Romania are ready for real-time. Another is so-called “crowdsourc-ing”, which translates into the 18 millionentries registered by Wikipedia in Ro-mania, including 160,000 Romanian en-tries and 3.6 million English submissions.Tpu.ro, a local site on which registeredusers ask questions and others provideanswers, has built up a staggering 2 mil-lion unique visitors monthly, with780,000 questions asked by users and3,000 new answers provided in an aver-age day.The online environment is nolonger the exclusive domain of the young,but is growing among users aged 55-64,the statistics show.

Despite the crisis, which eroded vol-ume of the media market by 36 percentin 2009 and another 10 percent in 2010,online continues to gain share and mo-mentum, being the only medium to growin an overall declining communicationmarket. The digital market is estimatedby Hyperactive to reach somewhere between EUR 47.5 and 55 million in 2011. ∫

Corina Dumitrescu

Social networks now shape the web


∫ ANDA SEBESI

How would you describe the Romanianbanking market at the moment? Has thelocal banking system passed through thecurrent economic crisis? All banks have a responsibility to try toimprove their customers’ trust in them.And there is no better way that people’strust in an organization is shown than thefact that more people do more businesswith you. Customers and banks need tounderstand each other and their financiallife together better. We need to know ourcustomers better, to sell and serve thembetter, to offer them simple and acces-sible products meeting their needs andfinancial situation, more suitable savingsoptions and, eventually, affordable fi-nancing solutions. I think we need anew business model for the country. Weneed to be a much less of a consumptiondriven economy and we need to producethings.

How do you see the current lending situ-ation in Romania? Are there any signs ofrecovery for the lending process?Lending will resume gradually as econ-omy recovers. We should not expect thecredit mania of before the crisis, though.People have adjusted their spending be-havior and values. Companies need to re-structure and focus on core competen-cies. The economy needs to rebuild itselfon a more solid base. We would lend toany good business presenting a goodbusiness plan. We see a lot of opportu-nities in industry, the petro-chemicalindustry, agriculture, but we also see anacute need for Romanian businesses torestructure, divest non-core assets andfocus on core activities.

We’ll grant special focus to support-ing the economic recovery through fund-ing municipalities and public sector in-vestment projects, co-financing EU proj-ects, making smart use of internationalfinancing facilities for financing SMEs (in-

dustry, tourism, services, and agricul-ture).

Overall, our target growth for this yearwill be less than five percent. That’s be-cause we do not see demand returning inthe first half of the year, but in the sec-ond part of it. But this is reliant on thegovernment making some significantsteps in its infrastructure program. Lotsof tenders have been issued for the firstpart of the year – they need to be fol-lowed through and the projects need tostart. It remains to be seen whether thegovernment will be able to execute them.

What is the most dynamic segment oflending, to individuals or companies? We increased our market share in cor-porate lending in 2010. We plan to in-crease lending to companies in 2011 by fi-nancing productive sectors. We prioritizeco-financing EU projects, international fi-nancing programs, alternative schemesto facilitate access to financing (such as

the guarantees issue: JEREMIE program).There is significant potential in industry,energy, IT and agriculture. We finance allgood businesses viable on the longerterm, but the economy needs to contin-ue restructuring. Companies need to fo-cus on their core business, divest andconcentrate resources to be competi-tive.

How was 2010 for BCR in terms of finan-cial performance?We have the largest exposure to the realeconomy and we feel most the impact ofthe economic recession. 2010 was a verydifficult year for our customers andtherefore for BCR. As expected, the re-sults were heavily impacted by the con-tinuing difficult market conditions inRomania: the economy was subject to asignificant austerity program and VATrise – the effects of which are still beingfelt. We continue to provide support forour customers, to improve the way weserve them and operate our business.

What has been interesting throughthe crisis is that our market share hasbeen growing in some areas like theFirst House program and the corporatesegment. We command the largest retailclient base in Romania. Our goal is to helpthem to be in control of their financiallives.

What is your strategy for 2011? The market is small at the moment, butit is growing. So, the areas we are focus-ing on are: becoming the leading savingsbank in the country, the leading corpo-rate and investment bank in the country,the leading mortgage bank and a leaderin the SME market as well. The areawe’re focusing on on the corporate sidewould be more in the larger corporatearea.We increased our market share in 2010and we believe we’ll lend more to cus-tomers in 2011. We support the eco-nomic recovery but the economy andbanking market need to rebuild on solidground. We are looking at schemes andpolicies to facilitate access to credit in ameaningful manner. We’re staying openfor business, there are still significant op-portunities and we are looking withgreat interest at infrastructure projects,co-financing EU funded projects, energyefficiency schemes, guarantee schemesfor facilitating SME access to loans. In ad-dition, we operate through 667 branch-es and our strategy remains to optimizethe results from operating the currentnetwork.

Dominic Bruynseels built his bankingcareer by serving the prestigious Bar-clays Bank for 27 years, where he start-ed as assistant manager in a Barclay’sbranch in the City of London. In 1989 hejoined the large corporate side. Subse-quently, his experience was diversified bya new role in operational business andsystems planning. In 1999 Bruynseelsbecame CEO of Barclays Africa and theMiddle East, responsible for 12 opera-tions across the region. Since 2008, thebanker has been CEO of BCR Romania.During his tenure, BCR has strength-ened its leading position on the localbanking market. Bruynseels holds a de-gree in Medieval History from DurhamUniversity and an MBA from Henley.

CV Dominic Bruynseels

BCR open for businessDominic Bruynseels, CEO of BCR, tells Business Review about the perspectives ofthe local banking system and emphasizes the main elements of BCR’s strategy, oneof which is increasing lending to companies in 2011 by financing productive sectors.

8 INTERVIEW www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

Courtesy of BCR

10 LINKS www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

∫ OTILIA HARAGA

At the end of March, the Ministry ofCommunications announced the launchof Ghiseul.ro, the National System ofElectronic Tax Payment via bank card(SNEP).

“The system is very easy for any localadministration to implement,” said theminister of communications, ValerianVreme, at the time. “We conceived anddeveloped Ghiseul.ro so that by nextyear all Romanian citizens can access itsservices. For this, city halls need just toenroll in the system of their own free willor at the request of the citizens theyrepresent,” added the minister.

However, the launch of the websitedid not go without a hitch. Shortly afterit went live, bloggers and media report-ed that the system leaked sensitive tax-payer data. Information such as names,personal user codes and sums paid wereavailable to other taxpayers who wereable to see the user’s payment receipt.The ministry later responded to the com-plaints and fixed the situation.

Government Decision 1235, whichapproved the SNEP, states that public in-stitutions that collect taxes must registerin the system according to a certainschedule, Andreea Stoleru, spokespersonfor the Ministry of Communications, toldBR.

The first stage is that all counties and cities with a population higher than150,000 inhabitants must enroll in the system within seven months of the government decision coming intoforce.

In the second stage, municipalitiesand cities with a population of up to150,000 inhabitants must enroll withinfive months of the end of the first stage,but no later than a year from the originaldecision becoming effective.

The third stage is the registration ofthe localities and public institutions thatdid not sign up in the previous two stages.Enrollment should be done within sixmonths of the end of the second stage butno later than 18 months after the decisioncame into force.

The Ministry of Communications hasthe job of making sure the timeline is re-spected.

“Following our discussions with vari-ous mayors around the country, their in-terest in using SNEP- Ghiseul.ro in thecities they administer has been con-firmed and they assured us that they willenroll within the deadline. The inhabi-tants of these cities will be able to paytheir taxes in comfort and no longerhave to endure the stress of wastingtime in interminable queues or dealingwith the inherent problems of the system

they have been used to. Equally, cityhalls will collect the taxes on time and geta financial update in real time,” said theminister of communications.

If a public institutions that should en-roll in the second stage wishes to sign upearlier, it can do so by accelerating the en-rollment process. The early adopters areinhabitants of Bucharest sectors 2 and 6,as well as people living in the city of Tar-gu Mures.

“The public institutions in these placeswere chosen because they fulfilled en-rollment criteria and submitted the firstenrollment requests,” said Stoleru. Oneweek ago it was announced that severalother cities were in the process of en-

rolling in the program: Arad, Baia Mare,Brasov and Zalau.

“Between March 30 and now, a total of814 payments were made using this sys-tem. The website Ghiseul.ro was ac-cessed by more than 40,000 uniqueusers. We estimate that Ghiseul.ro willsoon cover more than 1 million Romani-ans,” added Stoleru.

The system was provided to the Ro-manian state free of charge by the Asso-ciation of Electronic Payments in Roma-nia (APERO). “Let us not forget thatmany Romanians who live abroad had tocome to Romania to pay their taxes. Anda person who owned an apartment inBucharest but also their childhood home

in Sighisoara had to go to both places,which are a long way apart, to pay thesetaxes,” said Adrian Apolzan, president ofAPERO.

Ghiseul.ro is part of the eRomaniaproject, an overall portal aimed at mod-ernizing the state and improving relationsbetween it and its citizens. The value ofthe eRomania project is EUR 500 millionto be spent by 2013.

Just this month, the System of Intel-ligent Info-Kiosks for unattended POS(point-of-sale) tax payment by card en-tered a new development stage. Theproject was initiated in 2009 by the sec-tor 6 Public Service for Local Public Fi-nances (SPFPL), after being developed in partnership with Piraeus Bank Romania,which implemented the card paymenttechnology, and Printec Group Romania,which supplied the technical solution.

The second development stage of theproject means that people living inBucharest’s sector 6 will be able to paytheir traffic fines at machines from nowon. There is a 50 percent reduction if thefine is paid within 48 hours.

The program is based on technologythat is widespread in the western part ofthe European Union, called the Tech-nology of Unattended Payments. With abank card or cash, it involves a specializedterminal via which the user interacts di-rectly with the necessary informationin a self-service regime.

The project is currently unique inRomania. The payment procedure re-quires the authentication of the userwhose ID card is scanned. Payment ismade under the various categories suchas taxes or fines. For this, the system in-ter-connects with the tax payment ap-plication used by SPFPL sector 6.

The project started with eight POS de-vices located in key commercial areas insector 6, AFI Palace Cotroceni, Plaza Ro-mania, Cora Militari, Metro, Auchan Mil-itari, Selgros Drumul Taberei and Crangasicommercial center. Another four POSdevices were installed in areas with in-tense traffic.

The total value of the project since itwas put into place in 2009 is EUR 150,000,which was paid by the sector 6 City Hall.The first stage of the project cost EUR100,000, after which an additional EUR50,000 was required when the otherfour devices were put into place.Since the system was installed in 2009,there have been more than 6,500 pay-ments reaching more than EUR 125,000,which represents approximately 20 per-cent of the total sums collected fromcard payments. Some 15,500 people haveused the system.

[email protected]

State takes first steps towardsstreamlining tax paymentSince the beginning of the year, the state – in the form of its ministries and local public administrations – has an-nounced a couple of measures to streamline the tax payment process and free citizens of the burden of queuingto pay their taxes. BR reviews these recent developments.

Easy does it: the new system is intended to relieve citizens of tiresome queuing

LINKS 11www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

Nuclear physics center in Magurele moves step nearerNUCLEAR

Atotal of 28 companies, including 11Romanian ones, have so far ex-pressed interest in the Extreme

Light Infrastructure – Nuclear Physics(ELI-NP) project, which will mark a pre-miere in physics: the intersection of ahigh-power laser beam and a brillianthigh-energy gamma beam.

ELI-NP is one of the three pillars of ELI,or Extreme Light Infrastructure. It will bebuilt near Bucharest, at the premises ofthe Horia Hulubei National Institute ofPhysics and Nuclear Engineering (HH-NIPNE). The other two pillars will bebuilt in the Czech Republic (the ELIBeamlines Facility) and Hungary (theAttosecond facility).

Interested companies include Thales,Quantel, Cristal Laser, Continuum, Am-plitude, IBM, Gerb, XIA, Anchor andDILO, according to Nicolae Victor Zamfir,GM of the HH-NIPNE. The InternationalAtomic Energy Agency and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency are also in-terested in some nuclear applications,he said.

In December 2010, the Romaniangovernment made ELI-NP a priority proj-ect for Romania.

“This infrastructure we hope will notonly stop the brain drain but will re-verse it. I’m waiting for the momentwhen the German authorities complainthat too many Germans are leaving forRomania,” joked Zamfir during a confer-ence organized by KPMG on the subject.

Romania was chosen to host ELI-NPbecause of the know-how available here.

“There is expertise in Magurele both in thedomain of lasers and nuclear physics.After Germany, France and Great Britain,the best expertise in nuclear physics canbe found in Romania.

You cannot build something in a placewhere you don’t have expertise,” Zamfirtold BR.

The project is expected to make Ro-

mania an important scientific hub for tal-ent and know-how. It should also bring in-ternational visibility, and create 214 newhigh-qualified jobs in research and techsupport.

The center will be based in Magurele,near Bucharest. “Why the Bucharest-Il-fov region? If a research infrastructure isbuilt in the middle of nowhere, no sci-entists will want to go there. You alsoneed infrastructure and a social life. Acapital offers this kind of thing,” said Zam-fir.

The project’s prospects look good,said the GM. “There is a chance that theRomanian government will not approvethe project and also that our project is notgood enough. However, the chances areclose to nil because we have already sentthe draft project for a preliminary evalu-ation in January-March. It was scrutinizedand all the results were extraordinarilypositive.” This was carried out byJASPERS (Joint Assistance to SupportProjects in European Regions).

The total cost of the ELI-NP project inRomania will be EUR 280 million, ex-cluding VAT. Of this sum, the state has tocover 17 percent from its budget. “Theproject in Romania is the most importantof the three because it is the most com-plex and has the highest value,” saidZamfir.

The EUR 280 million will be dividedas follows: buildings EUR 65 million,lasers EUR 80 million, gamma beam EUR

60 million, equipment EUR 30 million,contingences EUR 15 million and other ex-penses about EUR 30 million.

“We are limited by two factors: one isthat structural funds at this stage shouldbe spent by 2015. Also, what this projectrequires in terms of tools – the laser andthe gamma beam – have to be conceived,you cannot buy them from anywhere.This means R&D. The time that physicistsbelieve is necessary to develop these in-struments is at least three and a halfyears,” said Zamfir.

However, there will also be opera-tional costs to cover.

“This infrastructure needs to be main-tained. We estimated the necessary pow-er at 5 MW, for instance. This costs a greatdeal. The feasibility study stipulates agreen source of energy with 100 heatpumps around so that the energy is pro-vided via heat exchange. This would bethe first time in Europe when you can dothis kind of thing at industrial level,”Zamfir told BR.

The high costs will be covered by na-tional and European funds. “This startedand will remain a European project andthe European Commission needs to getinvolved in it. One third would be coveredfrom the state budget, a third from Brus-sels and one third from private projectswhere companies would need to carryout certain experiments and pay forthem,” he added. ∫

Otilia Haraga

Nicolae Victor Zamfir, HHNIPNE GM

CO

URTESY O

F KPMG

12 PROPERTY www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

∫ SIMONA BAZAVAN

Would you say now is a good moment to in-vest in buying a new apartment?Yes, I believe it is. The market is showingsigns of a pick-up. People’s confidence isreturning, they are starting to buy andthose who are buying are paying cash asthe First Home (Prima Casa) program isnot functional presently. Nevertheless thebanks seem more willing to grant mort-gages, too. This is also a pre-electionyear and this usually means more mon-ey in the market.

I don’t think that prices will furtherdecrease, at least not for projects whichhave a good location like the ones Adamahas in Titan and downtown. Not only doI not think that prices will go down, butI expect a gradual increase towards theend of 2011. The proper price of an apart-ment located in Titan, let’s say, is EUR1,100 per sqm, whereas presently it is un-der this threshold at about EUR 900-EUR 1,000. But I expect prices to reachthat level in a year.

What can you tell us about Adama’s resultsin Bucharest and elsewhere?We’ve sold roughly 1,000 flats country-wide. In Bucharest we have sold 700and we have 150 more. Prices start at EUR55,000 for a studio but the highest de-mand is for two- and three-room apart-ments. Outside Bucharest it’s a com-pletely different market. People earnless, but even here we can see a pick up.

In Bucharest Adama has a project thattargets high-end customers. Has this mar-ket segment evolved differently?The Evocasa Selecta project is located onFerdinand Boulevard and it has 77 apart-ments out of which we have sold 65 per-cent so far. Prices have decreased less forthis sort of apartment but then again weare talking about completely differentcustomers who come and simply buy, nobanks, no First Home. Prices start at EUR90,000, VAT included, and go up to EUR300,000 and they are still relatively low

if you consider the location and the fur-nishings. This is also a very good invest-ment opportunity. In three years’ time I’mconvinced that prices will double.

By that time prices will be going upeverywhere especially downtown wherethere aren’t many new apartments andmost have large areas – a mistake somedevelopers made. Since the beginning ofthe year we have sold eight apartments atEvocasa Selecta which is very good.

What matters most to potential buyers?First of all I would say that the develop-er’s credibility. Adama has managed tobuild a strong and positive brand in thepast few years. Furbishing and locationcome next. Easy access to public trans-portation, schools and supermarkets willalways add more value to an apartment.

How much has the government’s FirstHome program helped sales?There has been a lot of talk about the FirstHome program but since its beginning outof all the transactions made so far, lessthan 2 percent were closed through theFirst Home scheme. Out of all the apart-ments we have sold in Bucharest less than10 percent were bought through thisprogram. I’m not saying that it didn’t help.The program had a good psychological ef-fect but at the end of the day it wasn’tFirst Home that mattered the most.

What would you say were the biggest mis-takes made by local developers in thepast couple of years?There were two main mistakes. The firstwould be the chosen locations, followedby the surface of the apartments. Who-ever built blocks on the outskirts of townor two-bedroom apartments that reach120 sqm or three-room ones that have 200sqm, simply won’t sell them. It was an il-lusion back in 2007 that one could sellanything.

Has the local real estate market grownmore mature over the last few years?People have learned lessons and they aremore cautious. Before the crisis the mar-ket was an illusion and those who tookout credits are not the only ones to blame

but the banks too. I have worked inbanking, back abroad, and I can tell youit is not normal to buy a plot of land to-day for EUR 1 million only to sell it threemonths later for EUR 8 million. Just re-cently I met someone interested in sell-ing a plot of land and I feel that sellers areonce again asking unreasonable prices.EUR 3 million for 1,100 sqm in Titan is notjustified. This is not Champs Elysees.Most people have learned from the crisisbut there are still some living under an il-lusion.

What are Adama’s plans for this year andhow do you see the market evolving in2011?There aren’t many players left on the mar-ket. At Adama we plan to start buildingtwo more blocks on the grounds of the al-ready existing Evocasa Optima and Ede-nia Titan. Construction will start thissummer and will probably be finished inthe spring of 2013. We are presently sell-ing very well in Evocasa Armonia and wecould also start the third block in there.

I believe it is a very good moment tobuild and it doesn’t have to do with con-struction costs – which are at a normallevel – but in two years’ time there will beno other new apartments in Bucharest.Outside Bucharest we don’t have expan-sion plans at the moment. We are waitingto see how the market evolves.

Are you interested in buying more land lo-cally?We are not buying but we are open to jointventures with land owners if the locationis good. We are constantly looking atthe land offer but some sellers still haveunreasonable demands. It is hard forthem to understand that a buyer will of-fer EUR 400,000-EUR 500,000 for a pieceof land they paid EUR 2.5 million for a fewyears ago. Right now we have a steadyland portfolio. We own land in Cluj,Timisoara, Oradea and Arad which webought in 2006, 2007.

How many apartments have you soldthrough real estate agencies?We have sold less than 10 percent of theapartments through real estate agencies.Agencies work in a different manner.They are interested in making money fast.If a customer comes and asks for a EUR50,000 apartment they will offer them anold apartment for that price and notbother convincing them to make an effortand consider a new one for EUR 70,000.It is also the question of commissionwhich they receive from us and from thebuyer also.

We have sales offices on the grounds of all the projects. We also hada large-scale billboard campaign on thesubway but now we mostly do our pro-moting via the internet, direct mailingand B2B campaigns with big companiesin Bucharest.

[email protected]

Adama hopes residentialmarket is on eve of new dawnAfter a couple of toughyears the local residentialreal estate market couldsee a long awaited pick-upin 2011, local developershope. Asher Lax, market-ing & sales VP at Adama,talked to Business Reviewabout the company’s re-sults so far and futureplans for the Romanianmarket.


Before joining Adama, Asher Lax workedfor 19 years – of which 11 were spent asmanager - for United Mizrahi Bank in Is-rael. While in Romania, he was generalmanager for the West Park andCasablanca projects in Bucharest.

CV Asher Lax

PROPERTY 13www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

Th e right policies in the areas oftransport and logistics could con-tribute up to EUR 25 billion to Ro-

mania’s GDP by 2025 and create 150,000new jobs, concluded participants at thetransport and logistics seminar, Roma-nia’s Next Step in Becoming the EastgateTrade Hub of Central and Eastern Europe.

Romania’s competitive position in Eu-rope in these two areas could be enhancedwith the development of the Constantaport, as it becomes a trade hub for CEE.

“The new EU Member States plus Aus-tria today account for more than 12 percentof EU’s GDP, yet the region attracts lessthan 1 percent of the sea freight coming toEurope. That is a huge imbalance, esti-mated in our calculations at more than 5million containers TEU/year and 20 billiontons of bulk commodities, coming most-ly from Eastern Asia and the Middle East,which should enter the region directly,but are transiting through north-westernEurope,” said Robin Martens, managing di-rector of the European Gateways Plat-form and director general of Archicom Ro-mania, one of the co-organizers of the con-ference, alongside European GatewaysPlatform, the Dutch-Romanian Network,the Netherlands-Romania Chamber ofCommerce and PwC Romania.

According to Martens, this situation is

logistics corridors and inland ports. “Butfor goods coming from Asia, longer routesmean greater costs, longer transport sched-ules and greater greenhouse gas emis-sions,” he added.

One way for Romania to attract a sub-

stantial part of the freight coming from Asiato Central and Eastern Europe would be todevise more attractive tax and legislativeframeworks.

“Romania, through its strategic geo-graphical position, could attract a sub-stantial part of the freight coming from Asiato Central and Eastern Europe, if an ade-quate tax and legislative framework wereput in place. We have already seen a solidincrease in Romania’s exports in the pastyear. We are confident that if you add theright set of transport and logistics policies,Romania’s exports could grow even further,by adding the re-exporting of goods com-ing from Asia, or even semi-finished prod-ucts and intermediary goods that are as-sembled in Romania and shipped abroad,”said Peter de Ruiter, president of theNetherlands-Romania Chamber of Com-merce and partner, tax and legal servicesleader at PwC Romania.

In the World Bank Logistics Perform-ance Index (LPI), which ranks countriesfrom one to five, one marking the worstperformance for the category, Romania hasa total score of 2.84. The LPI is the weight-ed average of the country scores on the sixkey dimensions: efficiency of the clearanceprocess by border control agencies, in-cluding customs; quality of trade andtransport related infrastructure; ease of ar-ranging competitively priced shipments;competence and quality of logistics services; ability to track and trace con-signments; and punctuality of shipmentsin reaching their destination within the scheduled or expected delivery time. ∫

because countries in north-western Europe,such as the Netherlands, Germany and Bel-gium, offer attractive fiscal frameworks forfreight transporters and logistics operators.In addition, they also have very good in-frastructure capabilities for harbors, inland

The development of Constanta port could benefit from the new policies

LOGISTICS

Better logistics and transport policies‘could add EUR 25 bln to Romania’s GDP’

14 www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

∫ SIMONA BAZAVAN

Romania continues to be an attractive in-vestment destination from an econom-ic perspective, but the general invest-ment climate – the administrative, legaland judicial environment – still poses bar-riers to foreign investors in spite of theauthorities’ efforts to address some of theexisting issues, believes Sonja Kreibich,head of the economic section of theGerman Embassy to Bucharest. To givean example, the way in which public ten-ders are being handled lacks trans-parency with some being canceled with-out clear reasons, said Thomas BenediktSingh, regional manager for Romania ofReinhold Meister Group.

Above all, there remains the issue ofthe general perception. “A problem weare still facing is the fact that Romaniahas a bad image,” added Radu Merica,president of AHK, the Romanian-GermanChamber of Commerce. He said thatcurrently there are no big German in-vestments in the pipeline, only expan-sion plans for already existing facilities.While most of the German companies op-erating in Romania have remained hereothers have closed local operations,AHK’s president went on.

A field where Merica sees futuregrowth potential is green energy,whether it is in delivering the necessaryequipment or building production facil-ities. Present at the event, Wilhelm Bal-bierer, country chairman of Osram Ro-mania, said there was a clear interest todevelop this field but very often thecosts of setting up and running such

German firms grit teeth and cling onGerman companies with local operations have mixed feelings about the pros and cons of doing business in Roma-nia. Nevertheless, most German investors have weathered the crisis well and continue to find business opportu-nities in Romania, argued attendees at the third German Business Forum, organized by BR last week.

projects are not fully understood. Lack ofthorough business plans also raises prob-lems when companies are looking toobtain financing from banks, cautionedThomas Debelic, senior representative ofCommerzbank. While Romania has thelegislative framework that regulates in-vestments in green energy, the second-ary legislation is still missing making ithard to implement the primary. Lack ofclear legislation, something that alsohampers financing, convinces many in-vestors interested in investing in green

Thomas Debelic,Commerzbank

“Romania has ageneration ofyoung people tolearn and there is an opportunityfor foreign in-vestors to train them in-house.”

Sonja Kreibich,German Embassyto Bucharest

“Romania has takenimportant steps toformulate strate-gies to get out ofthe recession andimprove its business climate in general terms.”

Wilhelm Balbierer,Osram Romania

“We see a clear de-velopment towardssustainable tech-nologies and aclear interest tosupport this sector but the decision process is often interrupted”

Rusandra Sandu,Noerr

“Investors contem-plating starting abusiness outsidetheir country areputting Romaniaon the same levelas other countriesin south-easternEurope.”

Uwe Kühn,IRED Partners

“A lot of investorsfrom Germany arewaiting – the lawdoesn’t give us thechance to financeentire green energy projects.”

Kurt Weber,Horvath & Partners

“Romania continuesto have an interest-ing mix of factorsthat keeps it on thelist for investors:attractive labourcosts, the size of themarket, and a goodindustrial base.”

Radu Merica,AHK, Romanian -German Chamberof Commerce

“There are no bigGerman invest-ments in thepipeline for nowbut the expansionof existing produc-tion capacities.”

Thomas BenediktSingh,Reinhold MeisterGroup

“In constructionthere are new ten-ders and new proj-ects announcedevery day butmany are beingcanceled beforethey are built.”

energy, including German ones, to puttheir projects on hold, said Uwe Kühn,managing partner of IRED Partners, acompany specialized in energy projectsincluding EU funding.

Nevertheless, Romania continues tohave an interesting mix of factors thatkeeps it on the watch list for investors,commented Kurt Weber, managing di-rector with Horvath & Partners.

Taking a look at what is happening inthe region, Romania is now facing fiercercompetition than before. It is seen as be-

ing on the same level as other countrieslike Serbia and Croatia when foreigncompanies are looking for new destina-tions to expand their business said Ru-sandra Sandu, associated partner andhead of the corporate/M&A departmentat Noerr and also the event’s moderator.

The third edition of the German Busi-ness Forum gathered around 50 atten-dees and was organized last week at theCrowne Plaza Hotel. The event was spon-sored by Noerr, Horvath & Partners andLufthansa.

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TALENT15www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

Established: 20092010 estimated turnover: EUR 110,000 2011 estimated turnover: EUR 126,500Number of employees: 12Initial investment: EUR 120,000

BABADOCHIA

While some entrepreneurs are hungry for expansion, restaurateur Dinu Pistalu’s appetite is sated with the pres-ent success of his eatery Babadochia. He told Business Review how the tastes of local diners had shaped hisbusiness recipe and how the restaurant’s progress to date is just a hors d’oeuvre.

Business Review has an opening for a business journalist. l We are looking for someone with excellent communication skills and knowledgeof the English language, and an educational background in journalism, communi-cation studies or business.l Duties include covering press conferences, writing industry news and features,conducting interviews and contributing articles to the Business Review website. Please send your CV to [email protected].

Join the editorial team!

∫ANDA SEBESI

Starting a business on the restaurant scenecould mean biting off more than you canchew, as the local market is full to burstingat the moment. But while there are manyplayers active in this tasty domain, there isstill room for new entries, especially on welldefined niches.

This is what Dinu Pistalu, managingpartner of Babadochia, was banking ontwo years ago, when he decided to set uphis own restaurant serving Romaniancuisine to fill a gap in the market.

“I started this business in 2009 whenI realized that there weren’t that manyrestaurants serving Romanian cuisine inBucharest. The concept of national spe-cialties from Moldavia, Transylvania, theBanat, Walachia and the Dobruja recallsthe doyenne of Romanian cuisine before1990 – Sanda Marin,” says the entrepre-neur. He adds that discovering Radu An-ton Roman at that time also helped himto fully understand the diversity of Ro-manian cooking around the country.Pistalu chose a specific niche targeting aclear segment of diners and focusing ona particular idea: that of evoking thetastes and dishes of childhood.

“Babadochia restaurant is mainly about old,traditional culinary arts. But it is alsoabout the cuisine invented in the cottagesof Heath, the sheepfolds of the Mara-mures area, and the houses of the DanubeDelta, Moldavia and Bucharest,” says therestaurateur. He also paid attention to thefood embraced by the old gastronomesand culinary historians. “This is whysome of our traditional dishes have theiroriginal names, in order to respect the Ro-manian pioneers of gastronomy,” he adds.

The entrepreneur chose to set up thiskind of business because he wanted tobenefit from the huge potential of the lo-cal market at that time. And like any busi-nessperson, Pistalu saw profits and chal-lenges instead of difficulties in develop-ing his restaurant.

“I considered this lack of restaurants

serving Romanian cuisine as potentiallyprofitable, because of the increased de-mand for such dishes, especially from for-eign tourists,” he says. “We identified thismarket niche and we thought that the au-thentic Romanian tastes could catch thefancy of those people who want both togo out and to remain loyal to traditionalcuisine.”

Any business that positions itself ona specific market niche takes a gamble be-cause of its limited number of potentialcustomers, and so the market approachneeds to be very clear. “It’s probablyhard to believe but promoting this busi-ness and our intention to create a specificoutlook for this kind of restaurant need-ed a lot of patience from us over time.And I can add that our mission is not ful-ly accomplished yet,” says the managingpartner.

He notes that Romanians are still atthe stage where their main choice is be-tween a Romanian and Italian restaurantfor example, which is a tremendous chal-lenge for him.

If he started another venture he saysit wouldn’t be a restaurant. “I wouldprobably choose a less perishable busi-

ness. It is a very dynamic market with ahuge responsibility. We always want tofully satisfy our customers in order tomake them come back to our restaurantand recommend us to other potential din-ers,” says Pistalu.

Each day is a challenge for the busi-nessman, from choosing the best supplierin terms of quality-price ratio to trying toconvince a Romanian to eat local food orproviding the best service to groups offoreign tourists. Turning to the specificsof his market segment, the restaurateursays the competition is not yet too tough.

“There are no players with a similar busi-ness concept to ours. Each restaurantserving Romanian cuisine tries to be asoriginal as possible, starting from its dec-oration to the creation of its menu,” saysPistalu.

On the topic of what differentiates hiseatery from the crowd, the entrepre-neur says that in Romanian cuisine youcannot invent anything new. So origi-nality is crucial for the success of such abusiness. “We saw several Romanianrestaurants with different styles of dec-oration, from rustic to modern. We choseArt Nouveau, the inter-war style, and weoffer dishes for all tastes.”

As for future plans, Pistalu prefers toremain cautious. “We intend to live in thehere and now,” he says. A rational entre-preneur, he intends to concentrate on thepresent situation of his business ratherthan making big plans for the comingyears.

“I think that each restaurant tries to of-fer high quality services and dishes. I be-lieve that it is more realistic to limit ourfuture plans to this goal. We still havemany things to develop in this businessand we simply cannot think about the fu-ture,” says the restaurateur.

He adds that when the eatery reach-es a certain level of development, that willbe the time to consider further plans forBabadochia.

[email protected]

Local cuisine provides palatable profit


16 CITY LANDMARK www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

∫ CORINA DUMITRESCU

The history of the InterContinental Hotel be-gan in the 1960s when a representative ofCyrus Eaton Group arrived in Bucharest.Cyrus Eaton had the idea of building an In-terContinental hotel in the Romanian cap-ital because he did not have anywhereelse to spend the night, since all the ac-commodation was fully booked. Thus, theRomanian Government and the InterCon-tinental Hotel Corporation agreed to build

a hotel in Bucharest. The hotel was built toa design that drew on the expertise of Ro-manian architects D. Hariton, Ghe. Nadrag,I. Moscu and Romeo Belea, now responsi-ble for the National Theater of Bucharest’sfacelift. Romanian constructors, engineersand workers participated in the projectand the building was finished in threeyears, a record for those days.

In the opinion of one of the longest-serv-ing general managers of the hotel, MarianStancu, whose tenure ran from 1980-2004,

the hotel had to abide by internationalstandards. “There was a perfect combina-tion of the requirements of world standardswith the local specifics – from architectureto gastronomy.”

Towering over Bucharestfor 25 yearsAt the time of its opening, the Interconti-nental was, and remained for 25 years, thetallest building in Bucharest, at 90 metersdivided into 22 floors. In a design quirk, the

hotel does not have an official “thirteenthfloor”, perhaps reflecting one of the archi-tects’ superstitions.

Architect Belea described the context inwhich the hotel was built. “In 1966, therewere politically favorable conditions for theInterContinental chain to appear in Ro-mania and for a hotel to be contractedhere. With Bucharest’s chief architect, Prof.Maicu, we began researching sites for thefirst internationally significant hotel to bebuilt in Bucharest. The hotel’s original de-sign was similar to its current form, withthree banana-shaped wings, but they wereinitially envisaged to be much longer andthe hotel much shorter. Intercontinentalrepresentatives decided that UniversitySquare was the center of the city and thatis why we built it here, in the place of a for-mer restaurant, La Zisu.”

Personal storiesTo its employees, the hotel was a Westernoasis in a desert of communism. “When Icame to work, it was like I was entering an-other world. I was no longer in communistRomania,” recalls Elena Burghelea, formerhousekeeping manager. In spite of this,some local elements were appreciated byforeigners. “Guests from abroad were verypleased with the taste of Romanian food.This was partly because we purchased ourvegetables, fruit, meat and cheese from lo-cal producers and back then, in Romania,the chemical substances used abroad hadnot yet entered the local market. A cocktailof crab tails with raw salad and Calypsosauce was very popular in those days andcost 17 ROL,” cook Iulian Stanciu recalls.

The earthquake of 1977, the 1989 revo-lution, the mineriads and the more recentNATO summit are only a few of the eventsthe hotel has been through. An employeeof the hotel, who worked in the laundry, re-members the 1977 earthquake, one of themost devastating in Romania’s recent his-tory. “There were a lot of guests in the ho-tel at the time. There was no severe dam-age, but those who were staying on the topfloors got more scared. The plaster fell offsome walls, and from the next day all em-ployees took part in the clean-up. In aweek, one could not even see that there hadbeen an earthquake.”

Moving onto the 1989 revolution, ofwhich the hotel was at the epicenter, a telexreceived in January 1990 from the Inter-Continental board congratulated the hotel’semployees “for their excellent level of serv-ice offered to guests during recent events inRomania.”

The big-name guests to have stayed atthe hotel include Lenny Kravitz; Bill Gates;the Harlem Globe Trotters; Robert Gates,chief of the Pentagon and White Housepress officer during the NATO summit;Zucchero; Prince Hassan of Jordan; DemisRoussos; Jose Carreras; Shimon Peres, Pres-ident of Israel; Jacques Yves Cousteau; Lu-ciano Pavarotti; Boy George; Richard Clay-dermann; Bjorg Borg; Stan Smith; BillyIdol; Latoya Jackson; the Kessler sisters; andYehudi Menuhin.

The hotel is owned by Compania Hote-liera InterContinental Romania, which reg-istered a turnover of EUR 4.75 million in thefirst semester of 2010. It is operated, man-agement-wise, by InterContinental HotelsGroup (IHG), which franchises and managesover 4,000 hotels throughout the world.The initial investment in the hotel wasUSD 6 million, and was supported by the Ro-manian state.

[email protected]

Bucharest’s landmark five-star hotel celebrates forty years of existence recently. Theimposing building has been a silent witness to some of the most important events inthe capital city’s history, including the 1977 earthquake and the 1989 revolution, andwas designed by the same architect now responsible for the renovation of the neigh-boring building, the National Theater of Bucharest.

The InterCon: 40 yearsof Bucharest history

LANDMARK CITY 17www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

1. Local and international guests appreciated the hotel’s cuisine and especially thenatural, fresh Romanian products; 2. In communist times, employees regarded thehotel as an oasis of the Western world; 3. The InterCon was a place for dressingup to the nines; 4. The hotel’s gym was quite a rarity in communist times; 5. TheInterCon’s exquisite architecture stood out by the standards of the times; 6. An in-vestment of such proportions could not have gone by unnoticed in the internation-al media; 7. Although no longer the tallest building in Bucharest, the hotel stilltowers over Bucharest’s historical center; 8. The New York Times spoke of theAmerican investment to Romania as a major event of the times.

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All photos:courtesy of Intercontinental

18 CITY www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

Roberto’s at the Hilton,tel 021 303 3777MICHAEL BARCLAY

I have not eaten at the Hilton for over a year,and for two very good reasons, namely: ithas been closed for some time for renova-tion, and the menu was dull and unimag-inative. The latter was entirely due to thechef and his boss, and since they have bothmoved on, it is time to look at the Hiltonagain. So with a new Italian chef and newmanagement together with a total facelift,checking them out was irresistible.

And what a facelift they have had.Doubtless you all remember the old restau-rant with its big central ‘gondola’ display-ing cold dishes, bench wall seats and a tinystage. Well, it’s all gone. The new Roberto’sis a delight. The old floors have been re-placed with a combination of parquet,hard wood blocks and marble. All of theseating arrangements have been changedin a configuration to accommodate specificgroups of tables for two or four diners to-gether with groups.

The kitchen wall has been knockeddown to reveal a semi-open kitchen, and asfor the atmosphere – it smells beautifullylike the interior of a new Bentley. All pol-ished wood and rich leather aromas fromthe new seats.

So far, so good. To match the impecca-ble interior we had the usual Hilton im-peccable service from their impeccablestaff. But we didn’t get down to their newmenu as we were informed that they hada private event on so the kitchen wasbooked up, which means no a la cartemenu, just the terrace menu. OK, thesethings happen, but I have to tell you whatwe missed from the a la carte. I nearly diedfrom frustration in anticipation of theirstarters such as ‘chicken liver pate on a br-uschetta with Scamorza’ (a combination ofcow and goat cheese), ‘Burrata (a combo ofmozzarella and cream) with basil oil androast tomato’ and ‘ruccola and asparagussalad with two-year matured Parmesan andTaggiashe olives (uniquely flavoured olivesfrom the Liguria region of Italy).’

By now it was apparent that the Househad gone to an extra effort to import Italy’sunique regional products. This policy wasextended to their mains which included theshamefully healthy organic pastas from Dl.

Roberto’s revisitedValentino Felicetti in the Umbria region andanother pasta made from organic EgyptianKamut flour. The menu groaned under theweight of so many regional Italian spe-cialities such as ‘swordfish Beccaficu’ (aPalermo dish usually served with nut andvegetable stuffed sardines) and ‘calamariPanzanella’ (a combo of bread, olives, gar-lic, balsamic, onion, tomato and basil). Icould go on forever, but I missed all of thesebeauties. Now see what I did get.

So they gave me the La Strada Terracemenu, which was quick summer terracefood including pizzas and pastas. I startedwith a Calabrese pizza which was a failureas the pastry base was as hard as stone. Isimply could not cut it! The kitchen’s mis-take was obvious as they had not stretchedthe pizza dough and added yeast (drojdie).I forgave them for this as the rest of theirbread (a similar formula to pizza dough)was superb. OK, every kitchen can have abad day and I suspect that you will get a per-fect pizza base when you go there. So ourperfect waitress Gabby was graciousenough to strike it off the bill! This won-derful girl has served me and other Hiltonregulars (whom she knows by name) for 12years. She is a perfection of professionalism,so bravo House!

Off I went to their salad section. I cannever get excited about salads other thanto say that if they are fresh, they are ac-ceptable. The Caesar salad was fresh andcorrectly made, so it was good. We passedon their well planned sandwich sectionwhich started with a choice of breads in-cluding baguette, or ciabata, or focaccia...and thereafter you add your filling from awell composed selection of choices such as Mozzarella, Prosciutto, bacon, ruc-cola, cheddar, onion Brie, tomato and salami.

My main was a ‘cod on a bed of as-paragus and wrapped in a rosti (shreddedfried potato)’. It was so generously large thatit filled me and spoiled me from furthersampling the menu. They really have goneto extraordinary efforts to ensure thattheir dishes are unique to the House and arenot found elsewhere in other restaurants,and I must commend them for that. Andnow for the biggest surprise of all. Theprices are all so reasonable that they cancompete on an equal footing with anyother quality restaurant in town.

[email protected]

New look: the Hilton’s Italian eatery has emerged from a makeover

RESTAURANT REVIEW

ArcadeCuisine: InternationalAddress: Ion Cantacuzino 8 Reservations: 0753 999 333 www.restaurantarcade.roOver the last nine years, Arcade has be-come a gastronomic institution in thistown. It is best known for its fabulous lo-cation and vast summer terrace, but youreally should go there in winter to enjoyits warm, homely villa ambiance. This isa top quality, sophisticated chophousethat can compete with the best alterna-tive restaurants in town which could costtwice the price. Their signature dish isPork Osso Bucco, a deviation from theoriginal beef version. Simply superb.

Bistro EpoqueCuisine: FrenchAddress: 17C Intrarea Aurora StreetReservations: 021 312 32 32

www.epoque.ro The Bistro Epoque is a smart-casualrestaurant offering guests gourmetFrench cuisine from its master chef GuyMartin. Owner of the restaurant Le GrandVefour in Paris and holder of two Miche-lin stars, Martin creates the menus whichinclude a variety of vegetarian dishes.

DivanCuisine: TurkishAddress: Franceza 46 Reservations: 021 312 3034 www.thedivan.roExpect the usual suspects of hummus,eggplant puree, spiced tomato and so on.They have a larger selection of kebabs onoffer than their competitors and this in-cludes beef, lamb, beef and lamb combo,chicken and marinated meat stuffed in aneggplant. And unlimited hot fresh bread.It is vastly superior to other Turkisheateries and has a larger menu.

HeritageCuisine: FusionAddress: Polona 19Reservations: 021 210 8850www.heritage-restaurant.euAfter five years of making mistakes alongwith constant changes of management,chefs and directors, it appears that Her-itage has finally got it right! They broughtthe mountain to Mohammed by importinga Michelin-starred chef. The menu is

fixed (rather than a long, tedious, ram-bling a la carte which so many restau-rants choose here) with three variations:

‘Classic’, ‘Evolution’, and ‘Vegetarian’. Andin a catalogue of surprises you will seethat for the first time, Heritage is afford-able. Gone are the crazy prices of thepast, and as proof there is the entry levelof one main course at EUR 59, includingfive luxurious tapas dishes to start, and amedley of chocolate lollipops at the endof your meal. It is cheaper still if youshare a three- or four-course meal withyour friends.

La VerandaCuisine: SeafoodAddress: Crowne Plaza, Poligrafiei 1Reservations: 021 224 0034www.laveranda.ro Here we have a House that challengesyou with a choice of preparations, and forthe first time ever, they even offer you aselection of fish sauces. The standards ofthe House have been raised to a pointthat the Crowne has well and truly re-gained its culinary crown. The finest fishrestaurant in the land, and Chef Ashliewill be delighted to come to your table toanswer your questions or to give youcooking advice.

Osho Cuisine: American: steak and grillAddress: Primaverii 19Reservations: 021 568 3031www.osho-restaurant.ro They modestly call themselves a steak-house, but it is much, much more thanthat. If you enter it from the front end ofthe building, you will find yourself in ashop which sells all of the chophouse’sproducts, ‘over the counter’ at retailprices. This includes not only their ex-tensive range of meat products, but anarray of up to 20 Italian cheeses andsalamis. Add to that a rich list of Frenchand Italian fine wines, and you have a

‘deli where you can dine’.

Taverna La ZavatCuisine: Greek Address: Popa Nan 16Reservations: 021 252 2956www.taverna-lazavat.roThe second best fish restaurant in town.It is relatively cheap and has a compre-hensive range of fish on its menu. The lo-cation is a bit of a dump, though thiskeeps the prices low. Go now and testthe chef by asking him to go “off piste”from his menu and alter it for you. I bet hewill do so.

Courtesy of Heritage

RESTAURANT SELECTION Business Review gives you a selection of top Bucharest restaurants. You can check thefull-length versions of all the reviews by our resident restaurant critic, Michael Bar-clay, on our website www.business-review.ro.


BR CLUB 19www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

∫ STAFF

As well as being the preferred passioninvestment of many, since it is the type ofalternative asset with the highest po-tential to gain value, art investmentsalso preserve their worth in times ofeconomic downturn. Specialists consid-er the field suitable for those looking at di-versifying their investment portfolio, andit is a tangible asset that can provide ahedge against inflation. These generic ar-guments in favor of investing in art haveobviously persuaded increasing num-bers of buyers, as Artmark puts the localmarket at EUR 8.3 million in 2010, up EUR3.7 million on 2009. Interest is evenly splitbetween collectors and investors, ac-cording to a talk given at the BR event byManuela Plapcianu, CEO of Artmark auc-tion house. With demand growing fromthose looking variously for multifunc-tional investments, profitability, orna-mental objects, aesthetic satisfaction andsocial prestige, the range of works avail-able is expanding slightly but naturallylimited in the case of heritage art.

Overall, the annual yield of the Ro-manian art market for the last 15 years(1995 to 2010) has been 36 percent, ac-cording to Artmark data. Last year the fig-ure was 40 percent. But how does a buy-er start their research? An Index of the Ro-manian Art Market has been availablesince 2009. Devised by Artmark, the in-dex is a book listing the average annualyields and market quotations of morethan 1,000 Romanian artists, both con-temporary and Old Masters. The indexmonitors and processes every public salethrough art auctions in Romania in thepast 16 years, and offers annual quota-tions, annual turnover plus medium an-nual performance of the entire period inwhich an artist’s work is available on themarket, as well as the evolution of themarket value of Romanian artists. An-other instrument available is the Art Sig-nificant Indices, featuring weekly quo-tations of 100 best known Romanianartists.

The top local auction sales in 2009were Camil Resu’s Aise, which sold forEUR 160,000, and Marcel Iancu’s Port,which went for EUR 130,000. Of thisyear’s 10 best selling paintings, the topfour places are taken by Nicolae Grig-orescu works. Tarancuta odihnindu-se(Peasant Woman Resting) grossed EUR270,000; Carciuma la Rucar (Pub in Ru-car) was auctioned for EUR 230,00; Lamarginea padurii (At the Edge of theForest) went for EUR 200,000; whilePastorita (The Shepherd Woman) nettedEUR 175,000.

The BR Club series of events are de-signed to bring to the attention of itsmembers the perspective, experience,and vision of local and foreign experts onkey topics of the business, social andartistic environment.

[email protected]

BR Club brushes up on details of art market Why is it a good idea to invest in art? What should one consider before making an investment in the local art mar-ket? How can you know what return to expect? Participants in the second BR Club event organized by BusinessReview last week had the opportunity of putting themselves firmly in the picture on these topics and others.

1. Manuela Plapcianu, CEO of Artmark, and Anca Ionita, busi-ness development manager at BR 2. Guests had the rare oppor-tunity to view the hidden trove of the Bucharest Municipal Muse-um 3. (L to R) Claudia Pendred, EBRD director for Romania; NeilCoupland, GM Romania and Bulgaria at JTI; and Yifat Inbar witheconomic section of the Israeli Embassy 4. Karim Kheirat, coun-try manager of ICAP Romania, and Irina Budrina, professor atthe Bucharest University 5. Oana Molodoi, sales and events di-rector at BR, and Sonia Nastase, GM of the Bucharest HoJo 6.Andreea Nastase, VP of corporate communications at RMGC 7.Stefan Kero, GM of Fujitsu 8. Manuela Plapcianu spoke on in-vesting in art 9. Laurent Charlier, GM of Gras Savoy 10. RobertMaxim, managing partner of Ensight 11. Ioannis Paschalis withthe Embassy of Greece in Romania 12. Anthony Kuhnen, GM ofEpoque Hotel 13. BR Club members enjoy the talk

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All photo: Laurentiu Obae

20 CITY www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

JAZZ

More than a decade since his departurefrom Romania to pursue a jazz career inNew York, pianist Lucian Ban is return-ing to his home country with a specialproject, presenting his vision of Americathrough music. The solo piano recitalAmerican Landscapes will take place atTeatrul Act, in Bucharest, on June 1.

Ban explains his fascination withAmerican music: “What fascinated me inmy musical trips throughout the US was

mainly the extraordinary diversity, withmyriads of genres and sources from allthroughout the world – America is the de-finitive place for global immigration – butespecially the ubiquitous avant-gardespirit and its constant experimentation.”

Twice nominated in 2005 & 2006 forthe prestigious Hans Koller Best European

Jazz Musician Preis award, pianist,bandleader, composer and arranger Lu-cian

Ban is originally from Cluj, Transyl-vania. He currently lives in New York City,where he is part of the next generation ofperformers and composers at the fore-front of contemporary jazz.

His talent has been acclaimed by crit-ics throughout the world. Jazz critic JeffStockton mused, “Ban’s tasteful, reflec-tive piano playing combines the ele-gance and technical precision of the Eu-ropean classical tradition with wide-ranging musical interests and a passionfor improvisation.”

The show will begin at 19.00. Ticketsare on sale at the Teatrul Act box office,open from Monday to Friday, between11.00 and 18.30, and during weekends, be-tween 12.00 and 18.30. For further infor-mation or reservations, pleasevisit www.teatrulact.ro or call 021 3103103 or 0723 103 103. ∫

Corina Dumitrescu

Jazz pianist Lucian Ban bringsthe sounds of America to Romania

Homecoming: jazzman Lucian Ban

POP/ORCHESTRAL

A little over a week remains untilSting’s greatest hits concert in Romania,which takes place on June 6, in Piata Con-stitutiei. The signer’s Symphonicity tourfeatures symphonically re-orchestratedversions of some of his best known songs,both as a solo artist and with The Police.

The tour is coming to Romania aftersold-out concerts in North America, Eu-rope and Australia. It will continue toFrance, Germany, Italy and Eastern Eu-rope. The British artist, born GordonSumner, is bringing to Romania a showdescribed as “extraordinary” by the Ger-man publication Bild Hamburg and as

“pure magic” by the Polish Rzeczpospoli-ta. “Sting and his orchestra are magicalrock,” enthused La Stampa.

The song selection includes The Po-lice’s Every Little Thing She Does is Mag-ic, Roxanne, Next To You and EveryBreath You Take, as well as Sting’s solohits, Englishman in New York, Fragile,Russians, If I Ever Lose My Faith in You,Fields Of Gold and Desert Rose. Theartist will be accompanied on stage bysuccessful artists including DominicMiller (guitar), Rhani Krija (percussion), JoLawry (voice) and Ira Coleman (bass).

Sting has sold over 100 million recordsworldwide. The Bucharest concert is be-ing organized by Emagic. Tickets areavailable for purchase on www.mytick-et.ro and from Diverta stores across thecountry, for RON 395, 295, 195 and 135. ∫

Corina Dumitrescu

Sting ready to get symphonic

CHILDREN’S DAY

National airline Tarom is organizing aseries of five special flights on the occa-sion of Children’s Day, on June 1. Theflights will consist of 45-minuteroundtrips departing from Bucharest.

Children will be given the opportunityto become familiar with an aircraft, meetthe personnel, both flight attendantsand pilots, and may enter the aircraft cab-in. They will learn how an airplane worksand how the onboard equipment func-tions.

Children aged between 2 and 12 canparticipate in these flights, but they mustbe accompanied by adults. The promo-tional fee on June 1 is RON 10 per child.Children over 12 will pay adult rates,

RON 200, but cannot accompany childrenunder 12.

Tickets, which are all for economyclass, can be purchased in advance ex-clusively from the Piata Victoriei Taromagency (Buzesti Street, Piata Victoriei,no. 59) and on the day of the flight at theTarom ticketing point (Henri Coanda In-ternational Airport, International De-partures Terminal, ground floor). Theplane will take off at 12.00 and passengersneed to present themselves at check-intwo hours beforehand. The next Taromflight lessons will take place on June 18and 25, July 2 and 9. On these days, chil-dren’s tickets will cost RON 100. ∫

Corina Dumitrescu

Children take to the skies on June 1

Courtesy of ww

w.lucianban.com

CITY 21www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

Getting cross: Paul Bettany is a priest on a mission

Directed by: Scott StewartStarring: Paul Bettany, Maggie G, CamGigandetOn at: · Cinema City Cotroceni, CinemaCity Sun Plaza, Hollywood Multiplex,Movieplex Cinema, The Light Cinema

∫ DEBBIE STOWE

It is a time of wooa-arh! Some time in thefuture, humans will be cowering togeth-er in post-apocalyptic Matrix-esque citieswhile outside their confines vampiresstalk the Earth. And not handsome,Robert Pattison types with chiselled jawsand proper manners either, but slimy,faceless fiends that want, as every self-re-specting movie fiend does – to take overthe world!Standing between the haplesshumans and the vicious vampires are thePriests, godly men and women whoseruthless fighting skills and mastery ofweapons are somehow not inconsistentwith their robes and piety. I supposepriest’s tunics leave one’s legs conve-niently unencumbered if a spot of karatechopping is required.

Our eponymous hero is Paul Bettany,whose quiet existence (the Church offi-cially thinks the vampires have beenvanquished and has decommissionedits kung-fuing clergy, but we know better,don’t we viewers?) is interrupted whenhis attractive young niece Lucy (LilyCollins, daughter of Phil) is kidnapped byblood suckers.

Alerted to her plight by her sheriff

PriestFILM REVIEW

boyfriend Hicks (Cam Gigandet) – theymust have a groovy kind of love, ho ho –and helped by an underused Maggie Q asPriestess, Priest must rescue her andalso thwart the evil head vampire BlackHat (Karl Urban), a rogue clergyman, byblowing up his train.

If it all sounds a bit Western, that’s be-cause Priest takes its cues from oater tra-ditions, with added motorbikes and mon-sters amid the dusty planes and gorges. Itis similarly violent, though the fightsare couched in the standard genre gram-mar and delivered with the stylized silli-ness appropriate for a film that’s based ona Korean comic. Importantly, the picturedoesn’t make the mistake of taking itselftoo seriously, or of boring its audiencewith too long a running time, and every-thing clips along at an efficient pace. Nordoes it shoehorn in a romantic subplot in-volving Maggie Q, though there is the oddhint that this is pending.

Priest is predictable, implausible andderivative, borrowing liberally from pre-vious Westerns, sci-fis and actions. Butsuch gripes are to miss the point. It doesnot set out to be novel or profound,merely to be an effective and entertain-ing flick, one which does exactly what itsays on the tin. With Bettany, Gigandetand Q’s solid performances supple-mented by a dash of gravitas from a brief Christopher Plummer cameo, there is no shame in confessing to havingenjoyed this devout entry into the vampire canon.

[email protected]

22 IN TOUCH www.business-review.roBusiness Review | May 30 - June 5, 2011

FOUNDING EDITOR Bill AveryEDITOR-IN-CHIEF Simona Fodor SENIOR JOURNALIST Otilia Haraga JOURNALISTS Simona Bazavan, Corina Dumitrescu COPY EDITOR Debbie Stowe COLLABORATORS Anda Sebesi, Michael BarclayART DIRECTOR Alexandru OrieanPHOTOGRAPHER Laurentiu ObaeLAYOUT Beatric e Gheorghiu

PUBLISHER Anca IonitaEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR George MoiseSALES & EVENTS DIRECTOROana MolodoiMARKETING MANAGER Adina MileaSALES & EVENTS Ana-Maria Nedelcu,Claudia Munteanu RESEARCH & SUBSCRIPTION Lili Voineag PRODUCTION Dan MitroiDISTRI BUTION Eugen Musat

ADDRESSNo. 10 Italiana St., 2nd floor, ap. 3Bucharest, Romania LANDLINEEditorial: 031.040.09.32Office: 031.040.09.31Fax: 031.040.09.34EMAILSEditorial: [email protected]: [email protected]: [email protected]

ISSN No. 1453 - 729X

CULTURAL EVENTS ConcertsMay 30Zone Arena17.00 Swedish band Roxette take theJoyride to Bucharest. The band haveincluded Romania in their 2011 tour,marking a new album release after analmost eight-year break in their ca-reer.

June 1Act Theater 19.00 Piano player Lucian Ban is re-turning to his home country with a spe-cial project, presenting his vision ofAmerica through music. The solo recital is called American Land-scapes.

June 6Piata ConstitutieiSting brings his Symphonicity tour to Romania. The singer will pres-ent symphonically re-orchestrated versions of some of his best knownsongs, both from this time as a soloartist and as part of The Police.

George Enescu Philharmonic June 1Romanian Athenaeum, Sala Mica 19.00 Romanian music concertPerformers: Ulpiu Vlad, Catalin Cretu,Maia Ciobanu, Nicolae Brandus, FredPopovici

June 5Romanian Athenaeum, Sala Mica 19.00 Chamber recitalOn the bill: Schubert-Liszt, Schumann-Liszt, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt,Hugo Wolf, Zoltan KodalyPerformers: Tunde Gaspar (soprano),Gabor Nagy (piano)

ArtContemporary Art MuseumApril 14 – June 12Zimoun & Hannes Zweifel: PreparedDC-Motors, CardboardZimoun presents, in collaboration witharchitect Hannes Zweifel, a new instal-lation based on cardboard and pre-pared dc-motors.

April 29 – July 31Kretzulescu HallsThe National Museum of Art of RomaniaKatsushika Hokusai (1760-1849).Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji The National Museum of Art of Roma-nia invites the public to visit the Japan-ese print exhibition Katsushika Hoku-sai (1760 – 1849). Thirty-Six Views ofMount Fuji. The curator of the exhibi-tion is Carmen Brad, oriental art spe-cialist.

Photo exhibitionsMay 28-June 24Crowne PlazaAn A to Z of Romania – Through theLenses of Expat Women

Children’s eventsJune 1Otopeni airport12.00 Tarom organizes flight lessonfor childrenTAROM is organizing a series of fivespecial flights on the occasion of Chil-dren’s Day, celebrated on June 1.

June 1Romanian Peasant Museum10.00-18.00 The museum celebrateschildren’s dayHandmade toy fairs, plays and a toy ex-change event as well as various work-shops for children.

BUSINESS AGENDAMay 3011:00 An educational campaign for theprevention of cardiovascular risks,SOS Cardio will be launched at Novo-tel Hotel. By invitation only.

May 3110:30 The Vodafone Romania Founda-tion launches the second edition of the Professional Volunteer programat Crowne Plaza Hotel. By invitationonly.11:00 Henkel Romania organizes apress conference to announce thestarting of works at its third local pro-duction facility. By invitation only.

June 110:30 Senior Software organizes apress conference following thetakeover of Content Speed. By invita-tion only. 11:00 Contrast Management Consult-ing organizes a press conference onthe latest trends in FMCG retail atRadisson Hotel By invitation only.

June 210:30 The US Embassy organizes a press conference on the American presence in Romania at theAmerican Cultural Center. By invita-tion only.

June 7 ∫EVENTBusiness Review organizes the thirdAmerican Business Forum event atJW Marriott Grand Hotel. For more info please visit www.business-review.ro/events.

June 8 ∫EVENTBusiness Review organizes the 2ndICAP Credit Risk Conference at Athe-nee Palace Hilton. More at www.business-review.ro/events.

WHAT WE AREWORKING ONCorina Dumitrescu Journalist

is researching thelocal blogging andsocial media com-munity, as recentinformation fromdigital agency Hy-peractive showsthat the local digi-tal market willreach EUR 47.5-55

million in 2011. Romanian bloggers arecompeting against major local publica-tions for readership and are increas-ingly acknowledged as opinion leaders among their target audience.Brands are turning them into productambassadors and more and more of them are being recruited by compa-nies as online communication aficionados.

[email protected]

Simona Bazavan Journalistis writing a reporton Dutch invest-ments in Romania.According to offi-cial data, Dutchand Austrian com-panies have dis-puted the topposition among

foreign investors to Romania for thepast decade. Many of the Dutch in-vestors active in Romania are Dutch-capitalized companies, others areforeign companies registered in theNetherlands due to a friendlier fiscalregime than in other European coun-tries.

[email protected]

Cristian Gavrilajoins RTPR Allen &Overy as counseland head of litigationand arbitration. Hepreviously worked aspartner at one of thetop ten local law

firms. Gavrila has been involved inover 20 international arbitration caseswhile locally he has won litigationcases in fields such as competition,public acquisitions and communica-tions. He has been a member of the

Bucharest Bar since 2000 and is fluentin English.

Cristian Corobana(43) has been appointed counselor to thepresident-general director of the Ro-manian Television Broadcaster (TVR) forweb and multimedia developmentstrategies. He has over 20 years of pro-fessional experience in telecommunica-tions, broadcasting, media andmanagement consultancy. Corobana haspreviously worked for Harris Broadcast-ing (1999-2006), for Radiocom SA, Mo-

bilrom and Ericsson Romania. Since2006 he had been at Romtelecom wherehe was involved in launching the satel-lite Pay TV, Dolce and IPTV. He gradu-ated from the Electronics andTelecommunications Faculty in Iasi(1992) and holds an MBA from ViennaUniversity.

Ovidiu Mihaila has been appointed general manager oftelecommunication operator Teletrans,effective from May 25. He takes over thisposition from Horia Hahaianu, who has

taken over the man-agement of Transe-lectrica. Mihaila, aged 43, worked pre-viously as generalmanager of the Romanian Cen-

ter for the Promotion of Commerceand Foreign Investments, under the Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business Environment. For a period of six months, he was advisor to the Teletrans general manager.

WHO’S NEWS Business Review welcomes information for Who’s News from readers.Submissions may be edited fo r length and clarity. Get in touch at [email protected]

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