Although TeraPlast is an increasingly known brand in the area of construction materials, few are those who know who the main shareholder of the group really is. Not because it‘s a secret, but because the Cluj Napoca-based businessman Dorel Goia rather wants to stay out of the spotlight.
Even fewer are those who know who Goia is, what he did before becoming an entrepreneur and how he made his way into the business area. According to his own statements, the entrepreneur worked as a teacher of history for 12 years until 1990 when he gave up his teaching career to open a pizzeria in Cluj Napoca. New Croco, a pizza house also operational today, was launched with the support of loans from the Investment Bank. The credits were quickly reimbursed, on one hand due to significant revenues, on the other hand due to inflation.
Some of the funds derived from the pizza business were invested in Astral Telecom, the famous telecom company launched in Cluj. At the very moment when the Americans of UPC bought Astral for more than USD 400 million Goia owned 1.18 percent of the company. In other words, he cashed in almost USD 5 million.
Millions from exits
It was not the only business that Goia put his shoulder on its wheels that was subsequently sold for heavy money. Joining forces with Horia Ciorcila, one of the former co-shareholders of the Astral, Goia has invested over time in the Maestro Industries meat manufacturer. In 2006 the company was bought by Caroli Foods for around USD 5 million.
In the summer of 2018 the British investment fund First Property acquired from Goia and Ciorcila the Maestro Business Center office Building in Cluj in a deal estimated at some EUR 10 million. Goia was also involved in Ciorcila‘s most important business, Banca Transilvania. He says, however, that he had never held a significant position in the financial institution but only bought and sold shares over time.
At present Goia and Ciorcila are co-shareholders in the ACI Cluj construction company, which was involved, among other deals, in projects such as the Cluj Arena or the Turda salt mine. Just a few months ago the press announced that ACI Cluj invested EUR 12 million in ACI Residence, a residential compound of 171 apartments. Located in the city at the foot of the Feleac hills, the complex was almost half-sold even before the completion of the works.
The crown‘s jewel
Nevertheless, Dorel Goia’s most important business, also the one in which he seems to put his heart and soul into, is the construction material manufacturer TeraPlast. Back in 2006 the businessman bought his first stake is the Bistriţa-Năsăud company and he has played an increasingly important role in its development ever since.
A very important moment was the IPO of the Bucharest Stock Exchange in 2008 which fueled TeraPlast’s accounts with about EUR 14 million, funds used to modernize and expand the company’s production capacities. TeraPlast gradually increased from a regional to a national and, further on, international business. The group has recently acquired a 60 percent stake in Depaco Prahova, Romania’s second largest metallic tile manufacturer. After opening a subsidiary office in Hungary in 2016, TeraSteel Serbia was inaugurated a year later after a total investment of EUR 11 million. It stood as the first factory fully-owned by a Romanian private company open abroad after 1990.
Last but not least, the TeraPlast group foresees an impressive consolidated turnover of around 800 million lei for 2018. Things will not stop here as the group has requested state aid in 2018 through three different projects worth a total of EUR 15 million (of which EUR 6.8 million should be amounts received from the state). An amount of EUR 6.2 million is needed for the plastic equipment branch, another EUR 5.2 million for a new metallic tile production unit for Depaco Prahova and EUR 3.5 million for extending the production of PVC windows and doors at TeraGlass.
