Swedish investment fund Greenbridge Partners announced that it returned the Romanian furniture producer Rus Savitar for free to the founders after it paid tens of millions of euros to take it over in 2019, according to Ziarul Financiar.

Rus Savitar also operates the furniture retail chain Casa Rusu.

Both companies’ turnover has constantly declined, and the profitability deteriorated significantly since 2020.

The alternative was closing it down and firing the 1,000 employees, investment fund’s representatives told Swedish daily Dagens Industri, quoted by Ziarul Financiar.

In the spring of last year, Rus Savitar entered a pre-insolvency arrangement at its own request.

Profit.ro confirmed the change of ownership operated in the Trade Registry.

The pre-insolvency procedure was prompted by RON 100 million (EUR 20 million) debt incurred by the company, Profit.ro also commented.

The turnover of Rus Savitar dropped from RON 140 million in 2021 to RON 127 million in 2022, when the company reported losses (RON 6.3 million) for the first time. The company’s turnover peaked at RON 160 million in 2019, the year it was taken over by Greenbridge. It posted a RON 22 million net profit that year, after a record RON 30 million net profit in 2018.

The turnover of the retail chain Casa Rusu dropped from the peak level of RON 100 million in 2019 to RON 76 million in 2022, while the company has constantly posted losses starting in 2020.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Facebook/Casa Rusu)