Romanian entrepreneurs have hundreds of thousands of euros frozen following SPAR insolvency

George Naghi and Dorin Mateiu, two of the leading entrepreneurs in the charcuterie industry, who own Aldis Calarasi and Elit Cugir, have 100,000 euros each to recover, after SPAR supermarket chain went insolvent. "I have about 100,000 euros frozen with SPAR. Almost all charcuterie producers have tens of thousands of euros or more to recover from them (SPAR i.e.)," said George Naghi, shareholder and president of charcuterie producer Aldis in Calarasi. SPAR, the third largest Romanian-owned food retailer on the Romanian market, with 44 million euros in turnover last year, has been undergoing reorganisation under the insolvency law for over a month, at the request of its shareholders, siblings Ioan and Floare Cuc in Arad. After investing heavily in expanding the network by opening 20 stores in less than three years, SPAR's expansion was halted abruptly this year, when the network's largest store, the Targu Mures-based hypermarket was closed. Shortly after the closing of the only hypermarket in the SPAR network, the Cuc siblings started insolvency proceedings, freezing debts to producers, as well as millions of euros' worth of bank credits. The Cuc siblings could not be contacted for details.