Two weeks ago you have substituted Krzysztof Oleksowicz, founder of the company, on the post of CEO. Is this the beginning of bigger changes in the Company?
I can assure the shareholders, that there will be no revolutionary changes in the company, after Krzysztof Oleksowicz left the office. The changes were made within the Board, Mr Oleksowicz is still a Member of the Board, responsible e.g. for contacts with key customers. Our aim is to continue our current strategy of development of the Company. Some tactic changes are of course possible, but no dramatic changes are our aim.
| | Previous year set some caesura in history of the Company. The value of consolidated sales revenue was above 2 billion PLN, net profit of almost 4%. Mr Oleksowicz, in interviews with “Parkiet” pointed that the time of large investments and risky project is gone, now it is just about efficient management. It is hard to consider mission that you got to be very exciting. The fact that we have finished the process of merger with JC Auto, and our foreign investments are ripe, does not mean that we will just keep protecting our position. In Poland we want to develop faster than the market and increase our market share. We have to remember that Polish automotive aftermarket is still very fragmented. Our market share is around 20-25 percent, depending on the method of estimation, |
so we can see clearly that there is still a lot to do. Additionally we are facing a limited growth, also demanding more investment in development of distribution chain. We are operating in two market areas, selling parts for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and motorbikes. Only in passenger cars market segment there are several product groups in which we notice a large potential for development, e.g. tyres.
Are further acquisitions recommended for development of Inter Cars by the Vistula river?
On domestic market it is hard to point out a large business, which after taking over would give any competitive advantage for Inter Cars, justifying expenditure. Of course, never say never, we are carefully observing the market. More probable is taking over some specialized businesses, selling narrow, specialized products. As a rule we assume a limited development, increasing the number of branches, improving logistics, developing sales support systems for garages. In previous years we found that building structures from the very beginning pays off on a longer run.
Abroad, Inter Cars is present in Czech, Croatia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Hungary. In Slovakia Inter Cars, just after three years of its presence won the position of the leader in the market, in other markets are at the forefront. What is the strategy of development outside Poland?
Our aim is to become the leader in distribution of automotive spare parts in Middle-Eastern Europe, and this determines our strategy. We want to strengthen our position abroad and we are planning the development of our infrastructure to do so. We are also planning to open a large warehouse in Romania, in order to satisfy the market demand in that part of Europe. We have made a large investment in IT solutions for foreign branches. This made fast realization of orders possible for them. Also abroad we bet on organic development and transfer of solutions which worked in Poland. Of course every market has its specifics, which must be taken into consideration when planning further development, but some model of development of sales chain, which was worked out on domestic market, also works abroad.
Looking for a weak link in the group, analysts point at Feber company, manufacturer of semitrailer tippers. 2009 Feber closed with 9 million loss, with 62% decrease in sales. What are ideas of the Board to improve this situation?
Previous year was very difficult for manufacturers of semitrailers. We have seen several bankruptcies in the market, all companies recorded deep fall in sales. Feber results were influenced by bad investments made in previous years, big stock for increased production, which because of decreasing demand became a problem for the company. The slump was really rapid, before Lehman Brothers bankruptcy no-one thought that the market will slow down so much.
Competition tried to change industry branch – Wielton started producing agricultural semitrailers.
We have concentrated on basic market, considering that it is not a good time for investment in new market segments. We hope that in 2010 we will see that we were right. The dement for tippers from construction companies is growing, investment in infrastructure give us hope for further sales increase. We are restructuring the company, ant this gives Feber the chance to close the year 2010 with a result close to zero, and 2011 maybe even in plus.
Will there be employee dismissals?
Reduction of employment is not a remedy for all the problems of the company in this market segment. Dismissing professionals, we would have to bare additional cost of training employees, when the market recovers. We are trying to cut the cost in other way, by activating our sales forces. Changes on the top are going towards the company. We hope that all this will help it recover much faster.
Thank you for the interview.
BŁAŻEJ D0WGIELSKI
Parkiet DZ/Nr 152 back