Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Another Polish retailer of RTV and home appliance products has problems. After Mega Avans went bankrupt and Neonet had problems with its IPO, RTV Mars AGD, a network from Gorzow Wielkopolski owned by Zdzislaw Kalamaga, has problems.
The owner of Mars company filed a suit for a bankruptcy with the possibility of settlements with its creditors, Marek Rafalski, the spokesman of the court in Gorzow Wielkopolski said.According to unofficial sources, Zdzislaw Kalamaga offered the creditors to pay back 50 percent of debts of his company. Representatives of the branch questioned by “Puls Biznesu” believe that Mars’s problems were caused by too rapid expansion which did not take into account market reality, the company’s possibilities and financial account. Moreover, it had too big stocks which it was unable to sell.We very closely monitor the situation of Mars network. Therefore, we were prepared for current problems and our business is totally safe, Hanna Wieczorek, the spokesperson of Amica, the listed home and appliances producer commented.This is bad news for the whole branch. The climate may deteriorate in the near future. In the longer prospective, however, if the weakest companies leave the market, the branch will be more attractive, a representative of Mars’s rival said.He added that because delivers of Mars will not trust the network any longer, it may have troubles with access to new products. Which means it will disappear from the market which hates vacuum.RTV and home appliances market is very competitive. Bankruptcy of one network is a chance for others, Jaroslaw Drabarek, general director of Media Saturn Holding Polska (managing Media Markt and Saturn shops) commented.In his opinion, disappearance of Mars is a chance for Neonet and Avans which are active in small and medium-sized towns.He added that the Polish RTV and home appliance products market in Poland has big potential because the Poles spend several times less money than their peers in Western Europe. Mars’s competitors in Poland include Neonet, which has 8 percent market share, 358 shops and had PLN 489.7m (EUR 125.1m) of sales last year, Avans (380 shops and PLN 2 billion of sales), Media Markt/Saturn (28 shops, PLN 1.5 billion of sales) and RTV Euro AGD (110 shops, PLN 1 billion of sales. RTV Mars AGD has 330 shops. Last year, its sales amounted to PLN 350m.(PLN 1 = EUR 0.255)