Sursa foto: Vastint
The sale, in 2010, to Vastint, a company with shareholders in common with Ikea, of the 5.4 hectares of land in a semi-central area of Bucharest (just one kilometer from Unirii Square), meant the beginning of the end for the Timpuri Noi factory, a manufacturer of compressors, pumps and installation materials, founded in 1864. Now the company, in insolvency, is also selling the premises it bought the same year.
After the €35 million deal with Vastint, Timpuri Noi paid off its debts of around €20 million (in 2008) and bought a 15,700 sq m site in Jilava where it relocated its production. Interestingly, Timpuri Noi had received, before the crisis that began in 2008 and ended in 2013, an offer of €93 million for the 5.4-hectare site in Bucharest, which it turned down, according to the press at the time. Inconscience or lack of market knowledge? Whatever the reason, it was the final nail in the coffin for an industrial producer with many opportunities, all missed.
Just five years later the company with the Employees’ Association (73.6% of the shares) and SIF Muntenia (21.9%), the main shareholders, went into insolvency and is now selling through the Transylvania Insolvency House (CITR) and the platform in Jilava for which 3.5 million euros are asked as the first auction price. Economedia contacted CITR, but had not received a response by the time this article was published.
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Also in the same year, 2015, Timpuri Noi delisted from the stock exchange. Incidentally, according to Profit.ro, in May of that year, SIF Muntenia requested the exit from the company’s shareholding and the payment of the counter value of its holding, valued at about 2.53 million lei by an authorized appraiser.
But Timpuri Noi SA did not pay that money to SIF Muntenia and, instead, in December 2017, decided in the shareholders’ meeting to reduce the company’s share capital by canceling the shares held by SIF Muntenia. The financial investment company appealed the decision in court. On 19 June 2018, the Bucharest Court decided to annul that AGM decision.
At the same time, Vastint, announced at the end of 2021 that it wants to start the second phase of Timpuri Noi Square, which will include 50,000 sqm of offices and possibly a hotel and commercial spaces, in the real estate project developed on the Timpuri Noi platform in Bucharest.
Thus, upon completion Timpuri Noi Square will reach about 100,000 sqm of offices, 50,000 sqm of residential spaces, and a commercial area with restaurants, shops, etc.
The history of Timpuri Noi begins in 1864, when the French entrepreneur Louis Lemaitre set up a mechanical laundry, which received from the state the concession to wash laundry from hospitals in Bucharest. Later, the company added a foundry, which produced weights and other official measuring instruments, also under a state concession. Sometime later, the factory began to manufacture locomotives and coaches.
Timpuri Noi was nationalized in 1948 and had grown to more than 2,700 employees. This was mainly due to the fact that it was the only manufacturer of small and medium capacity compressors for the Romanian and the CAER markets. After the 1989 Revolution, it faced major financial problems and was privatized in 2003 when the Employees’ Association took over 70% of its shares. In 2004, one year after the privatization, Timpuri Noi celebrated its 140th anniversary.