They started with an Oltcit and 3,000 dollars and came to run a company whose sale value was put at 50m euros on the market.
Augustin PleSea and Carmina Dumitrescu, the founders of Cargus, the oldest courier on the market, are now betting on other fields. Investments in tourism and logistic space are the new challenge of the two millionaires in euros.
When he founded what was going to become the biggest domestic delivery services provider, Augustin Plesea only thought of securing the necessary resources to support his family.
His experience in international freight shipping gave him the idea of starting a delivery services firm.
Augustin Plesea and his wife started the business in 1991.
Rising market demand made Cargus expand its coverage and only two years after it was set up it came to cover the entire Romanian territory.
From a car and two people, Cargus reached over 1,700 employees in around 15 years and a fleet of more than 1,000 vehicles. Despite having grown a business that reached turnover worth some 30m euros last year, Plesea has kept a low profile, being rarely featured in the press.
Negotiations with DHL had lasted for more than two years, but it was as late as last summer that the first information about them surfaced. Both sides denied the rumours, with Cargus representatives stating however they did not rule out a possible sale, while DHL officials would not have said no to acquisitions on key markets.
However, the decision to sell did not come as a surprise. As Plesea says, the sale was a "better" alternative for Cargus, which will thus catch up with major companies in the field in terms of technology.
In parallel with running other businesses, Plesea will stay at the helm of Cargus, a company with an annual growth rate of around 50%, targeting a 40-50% share of the domestic delivery services market in the following years, from around 35% at present.
The company's expansion may be sustained by possible acquisitions as well, which will not happen this year, though.
Cargus too bought companies before being taken over by DHL. At the same time, Cargus late last year relinquished international deliveries it operated through DPD RO.
In the wake of the deal, Cargus will exclusively focus on domestic deliveries, while DHL will deliver parcels only internationally.
As regards international deliveries, the most important players are, besides DHL, TNT and UPS, while the domestic delivery services market is divided among companies such as Cargus, Fan Courier, Curiero, TCE Logistica or Pegasus.
A rising number of foreign shipping, courier services or logistics firms are interested in the domestic market witnessing 30% growth a year.
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