Bilka from Brașov continues its fast development and wants businesses to reach RON 750m in 2020: ‘We intend to increase the number of countries where Bilka products are delivered’.

BILKA STEEL, the roofing manufacturer from Brașov, owned by Horațiu Țepeș, reached a turnover of RON 655m (meaning €138m), after a 31% increase in 2019. Now, the entrepreneur’s objective for 2020 is to exceed the threshold of RON 750m.

‘Our biggest challenge is to maintain our growth rate in the residential division, which at this point has reached maturity. At the same time, we want to develop the industrial division and look at areas related to our field of activity that can contribute to the growth and development of the company and its product portfolio. We are constantly looking for new development means’, declared Horațiu Țepeș, the owner of Bilka Steel, for Ziarul Financiar.

The company is involved in a large investment plan, totalling 25 million euros, which would materialize in the expansion of the production capacities for the development of the industrial product division. Two years ago, the company purchased for expansion purposes the industrial platform Hidromecanica 2 Brașov, in the vicinity of the halls already owned by the company. The deadline for the investment completion on this platform is the year 2021, when the factory of thermal insulation panels and other metal profiles is going to be inaugurated. 10 million euros of the total amount allocated for this purpose will be invested in 2020.

‘As regards the expansion of markets and retail channels, we intend to strengthen the distribution network at national level and increase the export network. This year we want to increase the number of countries where Bilka products will be delivered.’

Currently, Bilka is exporting roofs to Bulgaria, Hungary, the Republic of Moldova, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, and Ukraine. In 2019, the export sales reached 14 million euros, and by the end of 2020, Horațiu Țepeș has poposed to increase the sales abroad by 50%.

‘As for the number of employees, we currently have 550 employees. There will be no major staff fluctuations this year. By the end of 2020 we estimate that we will have 600 employees’, says Horațiu Țepeș.

He stresses that in 2019 the roofing market has grown by about 15%. The latest data shows that the sector is worth over 300 million euros.

‘We believe that in 2020 we will not see significant changes in the roofing market, the upward trend of the past years will most likely be maintained. We still have many buildings to cover until we reach the level of European countries that have a richer history in metal roofs.’

On the local roofing market, Bilka Steel competes with Blachotrapez (Poland), Metigla (Belgium), Impro (Poland), Wetterbest (Romania) or Novatik (Romania).

The entrepreneur Horațiu Țepeș from Brașov founded Bilka Steel in 2007, one year before the financial crisis, after previously working at Rova, a Slovak company, which was later taken over by the Swedes from Lindab, with whom he is currently competing. The name Bilka comes from a village in Bulgaria. He needed a short and meaningful name for the company and he chose it in his office while looking at a map of Europe hanged on the wall. That is how the Bilka brand was born.

Article published in Ziarul Financiar, Jaunary 16, 2020, author Alina Vasiliu