How the owners of the first two malls of Bucharest reacted to the opening of Cotroceni Park and Sun Plaza

Anchor Grup, which developed the first two malls of Bucharest, Bucuresti Mall in 1999 and Plaza Romania in 2004, collected 43m euros from operating the two projects in 2009, up 7% year-on-year, despite retailers' falling sales and tightening competition on Bucharest's mall market. "We made 42.8m euros last year from the shopping centres, both from rents and other operating revenues. Growth came both amid the opening of the new wing of Plaza Romania and from our strategy of increasing rental contracts gradually, each year. Moreover, part of contracts expired and in some cases we got better rents," Ibrahim Paksoy, general manager of Anchor Grup, the company that owns the two shopping centres with an overall lettable area of almost 85,000 square metres, told ZF. He reckons, though, that the number of visitors dropped last year in the two malls and the same happened with retailers' sales, but says the situation has stabilised in the meantime.

How did Paksoy react to the arrival of new competitors (Cotroceni Park and Sun Plaza i.e.)?

"They are two new malls, which can now learn from the experience of other developers. It is good that retailers now have more space for expansion. It was difficult for major groups to expand when there was only a small number of malls, and there are few suitable street front spaces," Paksoy says.