The day when he had the interview with BUSINESS Magazin, Ion Soloman was sad and quite tired. He had just decided to close one of the 26 stores of the chain and after the interview he was to tell ten more employees he had to let them go. The transformation of the business he has been running for more than sixteen years is now involving more and more ”dreadful moments”. The ”most dreadful” moment is when he remembers how he turned down the offers to sell last year when several buyers, especially investment funds, showed interest in buying the 16-store chain in Bucharest.

”Thinking about the amount of money I could have got last year, about my peace and my family’s, I deeply regret I did not sell,” Ion Soloman is now saying, exactly one year after the most important talks he held for the sale of the Ethos retail chain, from which he backed out at the last minute. Last year, his network had funds and strategic investors wooing it, but the businessman eventually did not strike a deal with any one of them, convinced he could boost its value and sell for a higher price this year. Meanwhile, the economic crisis struck and attractive offers are nowhere to be found.

”Not only that no offers have come at all, but there also haven’t been any signals of such intentions,” Soloman says regretfully, admitting he would like to see proposals, if only for his pride as an entrepreneur. Some offers did come, though, only that they were not as the businessman expected them to be. ”I got two offers for financing the expansion of the chain from two investment funds, an American and an Israeli one. Large amounts were discussed, but nothing has come out of it yet.” Soloman says talks have reached a stumbling block because he would like to work with an investment fund that has a local presence, because it has more experience on the Romanian market, although its demands would be higher.

Whereas backing out of the deal was an unfortunate idea, Soloman admits that a sale last year would not have brought him that much peace: ”On the other hand, if I had sold then I would have certainly invested in real estate and would have lost now.”