English
• The company of Cluj went through an extremely strict auditing process before getting the license
• A high-speed train can cost as much four million Euros
Luck seems to favor train maker "Remarul 16 Februarie", which after months of negotiations succeeded in securing the exclusive license to manufacture and sell trains manufactured under the "Bombardier" license in five states of the Balkan region and in Romania. The contract between "Remarul" and the French company was signed mid-week, after the French had "Remarul 16 Februarie" go through an extremely drastic audit before granting it the license to manufacture trains bearing the "Bombardier" brand.
The partnership with the French company furthers the goal of Remarul" to exports its own products, a plan that the company"s officials talked about in an interview they gave "BURSA" one year ago.
For now, the management of the company is keeping the value of the contract signed with "Bombardier" a secret, as well as the potential profits that "Remarul" could make by selling the trains produced under the "Bombardier" license. However, experts claim that just one train of the type that Remarul will be producing under the Bombardier license can cost as much as 3-4 million Euros.
"The partnership with Bombardier is very important to Remarul because it will allow us to benefit from the know-how of our partners", Adrian Timar, the president and CEO of "Remarul" said for BURSA, and he added: "I can tell you that both parties were very interested in concluding this partnership. This contract also features some confidential clauses, just like any other commercial contract, which is why I can"t reveal all of its provisions, given the competition in the market. At this time, I am going to avoid mentioning the concrete value of the contract we signed with Bombardier, given the fact that it will take place in stages, and each stage depends on the success of the prior stage. Following this contract, we will get exclusive rights to manufacture and sell these trains in six states: Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia".
The officials of "Remarul" mentioned that the company will need to pay 1 million Euros to "Bombardier" for the first stage of the contract.
• "Remarul" to start looking for customers
Now that it has acquired the license for the AGC (Autorail Grande Capacité) passenger train, "Remarul 16 Februarie" is working on its strategy to find potential customers. Only after we"ve done that will the company decide how much it is going to invest in technology and additional employees, says Adrian Timar, the president of "Remarul". He also said yesterday: "At the moment, we do not have a firm contract to sell the engines we will manufacture under the Bombardier license. Tomorrow we will start doing the concrete work, and we will begin by approaching potential clients. This doesn"t mean that we"ve had no negotiations so far, but our market is a bit different, we can"t open showrooms and wait for clients to come in.
It"s preferable we find potential buyers first. We haven"t yet considered the opening of offices in the five states where we are looking to sell our products".
"Remarul 16 Februarie" (REFE) is listed on the Rasdaq tier, with a market cap of 36.18 million lei (8.76 million Euros), based on the price of 19.1 lei/share of yesterday"s trading session. "Transferoviar Grup" Cluj Napoca holds 32.96% of the shares of REFE, and Monica Băiculescu has a stake of 32%.
In the first semester of 2010, the company posted a net profit of 1.9 million lei, down 22% YOY.
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