French group Cegis, which manages 12 shopping centres on the Romanian market, i.e. around 20% of all malls in Romania, says malls that have created a solid client base are not seeing a major decline in store traffic. Since the beginning of the year, traffic has gone down by 10-20% on average, while consumer spending dipped early in the year, later saw a slight rise and has since remained steady.
The company manages 12 shopping centres - Orhideea, Esplanada, Carrefour Colentina, Grand Arena (all three in Bucharest), Carrefour Ploiesti, Carrefour Brasov, Promenada Mall Bacau, Promenada Mall Focsani, Tom Constanta, Felicia Iasi, Era Iasi and Era Oradea. The shopping centres cover an over 120,000 square-metre retail area and have a traffic of over 200,000 clients per day.
"Romanian malls are a popular choice for weekends and after 6 PM. Any other time the shopping centres are more empty than full. If it rains outside, traffic is more intense, and if it's hot, Romanians prefer to leave the city at the weekend, so traffic is down," says Istrate.
As a result of the crisis, Cegis will end the management contracts of Promenada Malls in Focsani and Bacau, held by Belgian developer, because the Belgians have set up their own management department under the current market circumstances.
"We will end the contracts with BelRom by mutual agreement. We are in negotiations with another 3-5 shopping centres in the Moldova area and in the south of Romania, in view of taking over their management this year, but this depends on the pace at which construction works will be completed," explains Istrate.
The company posted an 8.3 million-RON (2.2 million-euro) turnover last year, up 25% against the previous year, after taking over the management of four new shopping centres.
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