Romania Feed

Romania's finance ministry raised RON1.78 billion on Thursday (May 4, 2023) through two government bond issues, at annual average yields of 7.34% and 7%, respectively.

Metropolitan Life, the second largest player on the life insurance market in terms of underwritings, ended 2022 with a volume of underwritten gross premiums of RON597 million, up 14% versus 2021, as per data provided by the company.

Candidates’ salary expectations are on average 30% – 40% higher than employers’ offers, according to data from Salario, a platform developed by online recruitment website eJobs.

Hungary’s OTP Bank Group, one of the largest banking groups in the region, has started to discreetly probe the market to assess interest from other banks to buy OTP Bank Romania, banking sources told ZF.

Cosmetics producer Farmec plans to invest more than EUR40 million over the next years to relocate the entire production to the Apahida commune where it is already manufacturing a part of its products.

Independent investment fund management company SAI Certinvest said the number of employees grew by 26% on the year in the first quarter of 2023, alongside a 492% surge in the number of new accounts opened on the InvestOnline.ro platform in the first three months of 2023 compared to the same period of 2022.

EY assisted the Carrefour Group in the signing of the agreement with Louis Delhaize Group to buy the latter’s Romanian business, which includes 10 Cora hypermarkets and 8 Cora Urban stores, along with almost 2,400 employees.

GoCab Software (CAB.RO), the operator of the cab booking services platform GoCab, reports revenue of over RON2.11 million on the corporate ride segment for the first three months of 2023 and expects revenue of RON13 million for the whole 2023.

Arrivals at Romanian tourism accommodation establishments grew by 18.6% in March 2023 to 815,200 compared to March 2022 and overnight stays grew 16.2% on the year, the statistics institute INS said on Thursday.

Nine in ten companies think cloud is essential for growth, especially used in combination with other technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT) and analytics, according to the latest edition of Deloitte Future of Cloud Survey.

Romania’s insurance market reached a gross underwritten premium volume of RON16.5 billion at the end of 2022, up 16% from 2021, with general insurance weighing 84%, meaning an underwritten premium volume of RON13.86 billion, and life insurance 17%, meaning an underwritten premium volume of RON2.65 billion, in line with information published by the representatives of Romania’s financial supervisory authority ASF.

Electronics retailer Flanco ended the first quarter of 2023 with sales of above RON300 million, 40% higher than in the same period of last year.

Mediapost Hit Mail group, controlled by a subsidiary of the French Post, in 2022 generated EUR54.2 million turnover in Romania and for 2023 has budgeted a 15% increase.

Spedition UMB, Romania’s largest building company by 2021 figures, saw its 2022 turnover soar by 61% to RON2.1 billion from 2021. Profit posted a fourfold increase, to RON137.8 million, but the number of employees is still low, at below 50.

Local furniture retailer SomProduct intends to open two stores this year, thus reaching a five-showroom network.

Italian group UniCredit for the first quarter of this year reported EUR64 million net profit from Romanian operations, up around 45.3% from the consolidated gain of 1Q/2022.

Nuclear power producer Nuclearelectrica (SNN.RO) on May 3 informed its shareholders and investors in a stock market report about the appointment of Dan Niculaie Faranga to the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for a four-year term, starting May 3, 2023.

GROUPAMA, leader of the Romanian insurance market, has announced the appointment of Calin Matei to the position of Chief Executive Officer, starting June 2023.

French-held Carrefour Group, which has more than 400 stores under different formats in Romania, has expanded its network in the country by 36 stores in the past year (April 1, 2022 – March 31, 2023), ZF has calculated from the corporate reports.

Roca Industry Holding (ROC1.RO) listed on the AeRO market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange on Wednesday evening announced that Bico, a company in which it owns 70%, had signed the agreement to buy Lithuania’s Iranga Technologies for EUR3.2 million.