Penescu brothers left without manufacturing operations, too after Pic's insolvency

Brothers Ilie and Cornel Penescu have closed the sugar and vegetable oil plants they hold in Arges county a few months after Pic company's insolvency forced them to exit the food retail market.

Food production, especially sugar production is among the first businesses put together by the Penescu brothers. This allowed them to tap into the hypermarket segment in 2004, a market dominated by foreign retailers, in which they invested several million euros.

"The company's production facilities are no longer operating either, but we are still packaging sugar for the Carrefour and Real chains," said Ilie Penescu. He added that the closure of the chain's five hypermarkets after the company became insolvent had a major contribution to the exit from the manufacturing business because the group's plants lost their biggest market.

Pic was the fourth largest sugar producer on the Romanian market in 2008, and the company's hypermarket chain was the biggest Romanian food retailer, with the group having 3,000 employees in all.

The company filed for insolvency at the request of shareholders in November last year, which froze debt to banks and to suppliers put by Penescu at 60 million euros.