Businessman Dan Sucu, the owner of the Mobexpert group, which operates in the furniture industry, believes his company is worth 200 million euros at the moment, but forecasts the overall value will reach 400 million euros by 2011.
"The value of Mobexpert has doubled in two years, after it stood somewhere in the region of 100 million euros in 2005. Two factors contributed to this positive growth: On the one hand, growth in profit and turnover and, on the other hand, an increase in the value of assets in Romania," Dan Sucu told ZF in an interview.
Mobexpert Group consists of 10 retail companies, 8 furniture factories, 6 import companies and 3 service companies (IT, logistics and design & development). Furniture retail operations are appraised based on the net margin, turnover and sales per square metre, while production facilities are evaluated based on their EBITDA, with a multiple of 8 or 9 applied. The multiple in this case is influenced by the company's financing structure.
The group controlled by Sucu posted turnover worth 168 million euros last year, up 12% on 2006. As far as profit is concerned, the businessman says its rate increases in line with turnover, but he did not wish to reveal any figures. "Our target is to achieve a 10% profitability, but we don't always manage to do so," Sucu said.
In 2007, Sucu announced he was considering the floatation of 25% in the company on the Stock Exchange, which could have taken place this spring. The announcement came shortly after the businessman had taken out a 32 million-euro loan to pay for the acquisition of the 40% stake from his former wife Camelia Sucu.
"I gave up the idea of floatation, because it was somehow connected to a certain pressure exerted by this loan. 2007 was an exceptional year, I managed to repay some of the loans in question and since then the pressure has gone down quite a lot," Sucu says.
He adds that although he has received offers to sell Mobexpert, he is not interested. One of the arguments is that he does not want to change Mobexpert's management structure, which is "anti-corporate" and "hard to grasp" for someone coming in from outside the business.
"It is my conviction that any entity, run by someone however capable they might be, which has more than 200 employees to oversee will not be truly efficient. My wish is not to have any company in the group with more than 200 people. I have implemented each of these factors, but I cannot find time for something other than checking the performance of the manager in question," Sucu explained.
The economic climate, he says, is so fluid in the furniture industry, that a corporate structure is impossible to attain.
Mobexpert's expansion plans include 8 million euros in investments in four large stores on the domestic market this year.
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