With losses of over 12 million lei, Profiland-Intfor has made it its goal to return to profitability

Considered one of the big taxpayers of the economy of Galaţi, the Profiland-Intfor group of companies, managed by businessman Andrei Lişinschi, is among the victims of the economic crisis. Thus, while in 2008 the owner of Intfor-Profiland Galaţi was presenting his new investments: a line for dying the thin sheet metal used in manufacturing metallic roofs and a line of composite aluminum panels for facades, last year the two companies lost over 12 million dollars, being close to bankruptcy.

Andrei Lişinschi explained: "Lack of capital and of financing led to a chain reaction of problems for us. The crisis in 2009 and a little in 2010 have led to a significant loss for us and we are now recovering with extreme difficulty. Because of these losses, our lending threshold has increased, and insurance companies did not want to vouch for us. We had new orders constantly, but due to lack of money we were unable to by raw materials".

• Losses of 6 million lei at Intfor

In 2011, Intfor Galaţi reported a loss of 6 million lei, as it had returned to profitability in 2010 (approximately 800,000 lei, ed. note) after the loss of over 21 million lei recorded in 2009, according to the balance sheet presented by the Ministry of Finance. The company's turnover also saw a dramatic contraction. Last year it reached less than half of what it was in 2010 (49 million lei compared to more than 113 million lei). As the company's problems increased, the businessman was also forced to let go some of his employees meaning that in 2011 Intfor only had 198 employees compared to 256 one year earlier.

• Profiland lost 10 million lei in one year

Profiland Galaţi whose main line of business is the production of tubes, pipes, tubular profiles and accessories posted a net loss of 6.2 million lei in 2011 compared to the net profit of approximately 4 million lei it had reported the year before. A massive reduction of the turnover was also experienced by Profiland. Last year, the company had a turnover of just 38 million lei, down from 130 million lei in 2010. Just like in the case of Intfor, the number of employees was cut by about 100, who were laid off collectively.

• In the future, the target is to become profitable

In spite of all these financial troubles, the owner of the two companies, who is known as one of the rich people of Galaţi, Andrei Lişinschi, said that his objective for this year was to return to profitability. He said: "Until now we've been barely operating in survival mode, but we are trying to capitalize and to lead a normal activity, so that, by the end of 2012, we would reach breakeven or even become profitable. We found an insurance company which will vouch for us before the potential providers of raw materials, and that is how we will be able to make new loans. The volume of orders is similar to that we had last year and we will be able to end the year with an output of 50-6000 tons, meaning a 25%-30% increase", the owner of Profiland-Intfor estimated. He also emphasized the following: "This is a normal situation and I don't think there are more than 10% of companies that didn't have this kind of problems". The output of the two companies of Galaţi is sold domestically (80%) and 20% abroad (Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova).

Aside from the two companies specializing in the manufacturing of metallurgic products, Andrei Lişinschi is the owner of a biodiesel plant opened for testing in 2007 and of a mall located in Galaţi and inaugurated a few months ago. On the other hand, the businessman said he has other investment projects as well, but for now, the lack of money is keeping those projects on paper, at least for a while.