Company "PHIWA" resumes realization of multimillion investments in Serbia in spite of global economic crisis

(Rudolf Walther)

At the end of the last year, the global economic crisis slowed down or discouraged many investors to resume realization of their ambitious plans in our country and all around the world. We can feel lately that these "brakes" are losing their grip, realization of good programmes is continued, and one of the companies that did not have defansive thoughts even in the most difficult days of the crisis is, undoubtedly, "Phiwa" Ltd., of which office in Serbia is successfuly run by Rudolf Walther for years. When we asked him about the past and the future, he told us the following:

- We have, so far, built over 100,000 square meters in Vojvodina, and we took our first big steps in 2003 when we constructed the first hall at 15,000 square meters, intended for production or storaging, and financed development of complete infrastructure at the surface of 21.7 ha in Subotica.

(Subotica)

We rented this hall to company "Loher", a daughter-company of "Siemens", for production purposes. We built another hall at 13,200 square meters in the same lot in 2005. and it was also leased by company "Loher".

We kept investing in Vojvodina, so that we built our third hall at 15,000 square meters and complete infrastructure at our land at 400,000 square meters in Zrenjanin in 2006. That hall was rented by company "Dräxlmaier" for its production activities. The whole surface has not been used, so that the rest of the parcel is especially suitable for construction of supermarket, building materials store, warehouse or production hall.

We resumed investing in halls, so that we built the fourth hall at 13,000 square meters in Free Zone in Subotica in 2007. Major part of that hall is leased, while 3,000 square meters are still vacant.

(Galleria)

We take pride in the fact that we torn down all houses in the entire block in Subotica, which lied next to the pedestrian zone and was surrounded by four streets, in order to build the most beautiful building in that location, at 29,000 square meters.

This was a very complex construction task because underground garages were built directly in subterranean water since Subotica's subterreanean waters can be found already at the depth of 1.50 m. This building comprises a hotel with four stars, which has 80 two-bed rooms, 7 suites, 1 royal suite at 90 square meters, 1 wedding suite at 90 square meters and 1 presidential suite at 120 square meters with its own conference hall.

Let us return to our beginnings in Serbia: we bought Kikinda-based trade company "Angropromet" with 40 stores and a department store in November 2002 in Novi Sad. The company went bankrupt in 1996 and all real estates were in very bad condition. At that time, we took over 126 employees, and today we have about 240 workers in food stores, one large department with electric goods and the department store at about 2,000 square meters. The company is now successfully run by its CEO, with our help, and company "Angropromet" won its first award in 2007 as the best run company in Vojvodina. The surfaces of food and non-food stores range between 80 and 1,500 square meters. The goods are delivered by the company's trucks from the company's warehouse.

Also, we bought company "Sentex" at the auction in Senta in 2004, which was in bankruptcy since 1998. We have refurbished all the buildings, so we could rent them out. We have about 7,000 square meters that still have no tenants. Since we are not going to build hall any more, and foreigners are not that interested in rental of properties, we started to build food markets in 2006, at 1,300-1,500 square meters. We now have food markets in Kanjiža, Senta, Ada, Zrenjanin, Temerin. Another food market will be opened in Subotica in July, while the construction of another one in Apatin is underway. Prior to year 2011, we want to buld another 10 supermarkets in Sombor, Kula, Vrbas, Novi Bečej, Novi Sad, Ruma, Bačka Palanka, Subotica (market no.2) and Mokrin (in the vicinity of Kikinda). All these lots are in our posession since long time ago. The markets are working under the name of "Valdi"-supermarkets. Once we finish their construction, we intend to rent these supermarkets on long-term basis.

What we need, after successful expansion, is the Director General because the owner of the company wants to retreat and enjoy his pension. This person should have rich experience in successful management of companies and, especially, employees because that represents a very important factor in the management of some company !