Bucharest, October 28, 2009: real,- Hypermarket Romania opens tomorrow, October 29, the chain’s 22nd store in AFI Palace Cotroceni, investment amounting 23.4 million euro

real, - Cotroceni is located within AFI Palace Cotroceni, placed at the junction of Vasile Milea Street and Timisoara Bvd. The new store has a total surface of 13,380 square meters, out of which 7500 square meters are sales area, and benefits from 2500 parking places, which belong to the entire complex.

The location, the well fitted spaces, the wide assortment, the high quality of products and services, non-stop program, as well as the Mega Mall shopping, leisure and entertainment facilities represent a great experience to all our customers. The 23.4 million euro investment in real,- Hypermarket Cotroceni means: first-class refrigerating equipment, latest generation scaling gear, modern ovens and grills, not less than 51 cash registers and a range that includes over 40,000 food and non-food products of which 90% come from local producers and suppliers.

The diversified assortment is based on two attributes: quality and freshness. The store layout was optimized, to create friendly atmosphere and easy navigation for the expected items, while a particular emphasis was placed on the wines and spirits, meat, bakery, and fruit&vegetables departments, which have been reshaped for a more pleasant shopping experience.

Like real - Vitan and real,- Constanta North, real, - Cotroceni will benefit from the "Enomatic" system, which allows customers to taste a certain sort of wine before buying it. The customers can choose among 48 wines, 32 red and 16 white or rose ones. In order to become familiar with real,- wide range of wines, the sampling selection is being changed once a month. Totally, the real,- wine assortment counts 700 sorts, beginning with the entry-level price categories and ending with wines from famous vineyards at national and world-wide level. The functioning of the tasting service is based on a tasting card that has to be pre-loaded with a minimum value of 10 lei, which allows an average of 15 to 20 tastings, depending on the chosen wines. Once the amount was spent, the card can be refilled whenever the customer wants to.

"Recently we celebrated three years of real,- on the Romanian market and I am glad that this almost coincides with the opening of the third store in the capital city. Bucharest still has a high potential for the modern retail development and it was time for us to expand in the west area of the city. This opening is a great challenge for us as it is a premiere, the first hypermarket opened in a mall, and for this reason we have very high expectations from this store. We are convinced that real,- Cotroceni will satisfy customers’ demands for transparency and the right shopping atmosphere, quality and freshness, good value for money and last but not least, efficient services. We hope we have proved that we are a reliable business partner for our local suppliers and also a professional employer that offers national and international career opportunities for its staff. We consider that Bucharest has, at the time being, a dynamic retail market, where the competition is high and where we want to distinguish ourselves not only through good prices, but also through high quality. 2009 means further investments by opening new stores till yearend, while continuing the development of new projects, such as: Supply Chain development, new products introduction as a key part of our efforts to sharpen the profile of the real,- family brand: real,-Quality, real,-Bio and real,-Selection, and better communication with our customer, through loyalty programs like our current “Gateste fara egal"  stated Jean Marc Givert, real,- International.

“We are proud to announce that the time to open the biggest shopping centre in Romania and Eastern Europe has arrived. AFI Palace Cotroceni is unique, the most different and attractive mall, which is going to be opened around the clock, 24 a day, starting October 29th, 2009. We truly believe this huge Real Hypermarket is the leading anchor of AFI Palace Cotroceni. Coming also with its unique concept of working around the clock, 24 a day represents might be considered the milestone of the Mega Fun.", said Israel Visel, Mall Manager AFI Palace Cotroceni Mega Fun

real,- Cotroceni provides top quality services such as: very flexible financing opportunities in partnership with well known banks, test benches to check the purchased appliances, clothes adjusting, home delivery of bulky non food products with a price of over RON 500 per unit, product return desk etc.  

The whole area of AFI Palace Cotroceni  is divided into three sectors which include, besides the real,- hypermarket, 250 shops, 2,500 parking places, 20 cinemas, the first IMAX in Romania (3D), a go-kart track, two casinos, a skating rink of about 1,000 sqm, opened all year round, an artificial lake with power boats for children, a roller-skating, a laser tag arena, bowling and snooker, Express mini electric train, a space dedicated to permanent exhibition and a place where customers can smoke narghile.

Notes for the editors:

Last year real, - Romania registered a very strong growth as a result of both new store openings and organic sales growth. The turnover increased from Ron 1.22 billion (Euro 367 million) to Ron 2.35 billion (Euro 638 million) that represents a notable growth of 92% (73.8% for Euro equivalent adjusted with the currency effect) in comparison with the previous year 2007. At the same time real,- continued its ambitious expansion plan on the Romanian retail market with the opening of 6 new stores in 2008 and two in 2009, so, at this moment, the real,- Romania network counts 22 hypermarkets (Three hypermarkets Bucuresti, two in the cities Constanta, Oradea and Timisoara and one in the cities: Arad, Bacau, Baia Mare, Brasov, Cluj, Craiova, Deva, Galati, Pitesti, Satu Mare, Sibiu, Suceava and Tg. Mures).

The company headcount at the end of 2008 was of 7,568 employees (annual average including HO) with 3,054 more that the headcount at the end of 2007.

*Sales are net values (do not include VAT)

About  AFI Palace Cotroceni

AFI Palace Cotroceni is an AFI Europe project, member of Africa Israel Group, one of the most important investors and developers from the Central and South-eastern Europe real estate field, operating huge projects - commercial centers, malls, luxury residential projects, office buildings or logistic parks in Czech Republic, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia, Poland and Hungary. All the projects of AFI Europe are well known for their smart design and their top quality development.