Colliers | COVID-19: Romanian Retail Market Survey

Nonfood retailers are among the most affected by measures taken during the state of emergency to prevent the spread of Covid-19. 45% of retail tenants expect over 30% decrease of their turnover in 2020 and another 39% foresee up to 30% declines as a result of these at least 2 months of no trading, with slow recovery expected in the second half of this year, according to a study conducted by Colliers International’s Retail Division among 84 tenants and 21 landlords from the retail sector in Romania.

Landlords of retail spaces reacted rapidly in the current context, closing part of the shopping centers, where it was physically possible (67%), renegotiating terms with third party suppliers (45%) and even with banks (29%), according to Colliers International’s study among retail landlords. Almost all of them have also used some available state benefits, such as delay of tax payment (52%), technical unemployment (48%) and delayed bank payments (24%).

First signs of recovery in the retail market are expected starting with Q4 2020, but with more consistent results in 2021, which shows that both retailers and landlords are confident in a relatively fast recovery.

COVID-19: Romanian Retail Market Survey

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Simina Niculita

Director | Partner | Romania

Bucharest

+40 21 319 77 77

+40 723 178 919

Simina joined Colliers International in May 2005. She started her career as a junior broker selling new apartments in some of the first residential projects. In less than one year, she became the Project Manager of several residential projects, coordinating the sales team and advising on the sales and marketing strategy. She also provided consultancy for other new projects to be launched on the market.

During 2007-2008, Simina led the residential investment team and offered consultancy to investors interested in acquiring portfolios of apartments. She managed to sell a total of 1,300 apartments in 14 months and coordinated the sales & marketing strategy for off-plan residential projects: Central Park, Global City, Flamenco, Seasons, Green Lake, Sky City;

Simina joined the Retail Agency at the beginning of 2009, creating several retail schemes both as a Project Manager and as a Leasing Broker. Her work with the developers involved concept consultancy, market research, team coordination, and leasing strategy.

Currently, Simina is Associate Director of the Retail Agency and has an active role in establishing the strategy and the priorities of the Shopping Centers team. Simina is focused on project management, providing consultancy for future major retail schemes and negotiating with anchor tenants and medium size tenants.

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Liana Dumitru

Director

Bucharest

+40 21 319 77 77

+40 722 622 121

Liana started her career in Colliers in the residential field, concluding both lease and sales transactions for tenants such as Citibank, JTI, Canadian Telecommunication Systems, Daiwa Securities, Union Fenosa, Kuhne and Nagel, Piraeus Bank, and others.

Liana joined the retail department in 2005 after graduating the Romanian – Canadian MBA Programme (ASE, Ottawa University, HEC Montreal). She was involved in both leasing and marketing services for shopping center developers such as Globe Trade Center (GTC), Mivan Development, Futureal Group, Neocity, Immoeast and Benevo. Liana was also part of the leasing process of two shopping center developments: Mega Mall Bucharest (a shopping center project of 70,000 sq m of GLA to be delivered in 2014) and Cora portfolio (Bacau, Bucharest).

She specialized on shopping center projects and got involved in each stage of the development process: concept and tenant mix development, project marketing strategy, and coordination of the leasing process.

Currently she is part of the leasing team for benevo’s project “victoria city lifestyle center”, working with well-known brands

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Silviu Pop

Director

Bucharest

+40 21 319 77 77

+40 721 176 701

Before joining Colliers mid-2017 as Head of Research for Romania, Silviu Pop worked with ING Bank for close to three years as an economist, covering macroeconomic/financial market themes for Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia. His previous professional experience includes working almost 7 years as a financial journalist at various media outlets in Romania, including the sole business-oriented TV station in Romania, where he hosted a daily show for a period of time; during this interval, he won a number of scholarships, including a stint with Reuters. He holds a BSc in economics at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies.

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