French retailer Carrefour and Romanian retail chain Angst, controlled by Romanian businessman Sorin Minea, have signed a partnership to develop the Carrefour Express stores network in Romania. Carrefour used to run Carrefour Express stores in Romania- the former Artima network- but has re-branded them as Carrefour Market. Through the partnership with Angst, Carrefour will re-start expansion on the Express segment. The retailer have yet to make public details of the partnership.

Carrefour  currently runs a network of 23 hypermarkets and 38 supermarkets under the Carrefour Market logo. Carrefour entered Romania in 2001 with its hypermarket format.

The Angst store network is currently made of 27 units and posted a turnover of EUR 43.9 million last year and a mere profit of EUR 11,9000, according to data from the Finance Ministry.  The chain's profit has been going down for the last couple of years in a row.

Retailer Carrefour posted a growth of 1.4 percent in sales in Romania in the second quarter of the year, after seeing sales drop in the previous nine quarters. Carrefour’s sales reached EUR 555 million in the first half of this year in Romania, while they stood at EUR 288 million in the second quarter of the year.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Carrefour)