Romania’s Bilka Steel sees 43% sales increase in first half of 2014, starts new production line

Romanian company Bilka Steel, one of the largest local metal tile producers, recently inaugurated a new production line that will help it meet growing demand. The company posted a 43 percent increase in sales in the first semester of this year, to more than EUR 10 million. The company already opened two new production lines this year, for its factory in Brasov, which help it increase production of classic metal tiles by 60 percent. The two lines are part of an investment plan which started at the beginning of this year and which will be finalized in 2016. The total investment is about EUR 5 million. “We want to be able to serve any request we get and not to get to the situation in which we can’t produce what is asked of us. We want to be able to deliver all orders in 24 hours. For this, the two production lines were absolutely necessary,” said Horatiu Tepes, owner of Bilka Steel. Bilka Steel bought the assets of the former Romlag Brasov factory at the beginning of the year, adding 27,000 sqm of space for new development, then it opened the two new production lines. The following step is to make a production line for roof accessories, which will be partly financed through EU funds. This should be finalized by mid-2015. The company produced 3.2 million sqm of metal tiles last year and had total sales of EUR 23.5 million. Bilka Steel also made a net profit of EUR 1.3 million. It had has about 70 employees. Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com