How Puiu Popoviciu acquired the first mall that entered insolvency

• Four years ago, the Irish of "MLS Proiect" were planning to build seven malls in some of Romania"s major cities

• The Irish, who invested via Switzerland and Sweden, are now selling the mall they were working on to a company registered in Cyprus, controlled by Puiu Popoviciu, for 30 million Euros

The crisis and the difficulty in securing funding have completely overturned the plans of the Irish investors, who, four years ago made an ambitious bet of tens of millions of Euros: that the purchasing power of Romanians in cities outside Bucharest would increase.

The Irish, which invested in Romania via Switzerland and Sweden planned to build several malls in major Romanian cities: Oradea, Braşov, Târgu Mureş, Ploieşti, Bacău, Sibiu, Arad.

They are now forced to let go of their first project, the one in Oradea, after becoming heavily indebted, by selling it to Puiu Popoviciu, one of the biggest players on the Romanian real estate market, for 30.5 million, after borrowing almost twice as much from banks.

The first auction for the sale of the mall was held on June 3rd, with a starting bid of 35.5 million Euros, VAT excluded, was met with no bids.

The assets that were being auctioned off: a plot of land of almost 70,000 sqm and a building which includes basement, ground floor, first floor and a framework which is 85-90% complete.

Representatives of the "Transilvania Insolvency House", the trustee in bankruptcy of the developer "MLS Proiect Oradea" stated the following: "The company entered bankruptcy because it failed to secure the funding to complete the investment. The execution schedule was extended twice, which is why the company failed to secure the rental contracts with the retailers. When they saw that the deadline for the completion of the construction was not met, the potential tenants no longer wanted to go ahead with leasing retail areas".

On Friday, a company called "Shopping Center Holding" SRL, controlled by Puiu Popoviciu, paid 30.5 million Euros, plus VAT in an auction to acquire the project.

The chain of offshore companies