”The company needed the cleanup,” says Nicolae Bara, minority shareholder of Frigotehnica, explaining the reasons for the sale. In December 2008, the company, which was a market leader on the refrigeration market in Romania, was involved in one of the highestprofile transactions, when it was taken over by Balkan Accession Fund (BAF) investment fund. Nicolae Bara (55) has been working for Frigotehnica since 1979, when he graduated. He has left the company only once ever since, and that was for one year, when he decided to start his own business.

”In 1992, (when he was production manager i.e.), I started a business in the refrigeration industry, which I used to get back with Frigotehnica. I actually have never left the company, because my company was based 50 metres across the street from Frigotehnica. I didn’t even leave the area, just the yard for a bit.” Shortly after returning to Frigotehnica, its privatisation process started and was completed in 1995, when Bara became the shareholder and general manager of the group. ”In November 1994 I won the management contest at Frigotehnica (through the company I had set up in ‘92) and in June ‘95 I completed the privatisation process, with the entire red tape required by the legislation.”

Bara’s stake increased to 38% in the meantime, after buying shares from the colleagues who wanted out of the business, he explains. In 1995, the year of privatisation, the company posted a 200,000 USD turnover, and 2008, the year of the sale to BAF, ended with revenues worth approximately 52 million euros (of which Frigotehnica contributed about 47 million euros). ”There have been stages and stages in the company’s history: it’s been a few years now since, as a result of the significant development of the major retail chains, commercial refrigeration started to prevail over industrial refrigeration (according to BAT, Frigotehnica accounts for 75% of the commercial refrigeration systems market and for 20% of the industrial segment i.e.),” Bara recalls, explaining how he moved the company that worked mainly with industrial to commercial clients; demand for commercial refrigeration started in 1996, when Metro opened its first store in Romania.