VIENNA, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Struggling Austrian home improvements group BauMax has sold its Bulgarian unit with eight stores to local investor Haedus JSC, it said on Thursday, taking another step in its campaign to shrink back to health. It gave no financial terms for the deal, which still requires regulatory approval. BauMax sold its Romanian business in July and said in April it was closing its seven outlets in Turkey.
BauMax, which like other home improvements chains in Europe has suffered from weak demand due to sagging housing markets and depressed economies, is working to implement by 2016 a restructuring plan worked out with creditor banks including Raiffeisen, Erste Group and Bank Austria.
Austrian tycoon Hans Peter Haselsteiner came to the rescue of BauMax owner Karlheinz Essl this month by buying a modern art collection that Essl had tried in vain to sell to the state to prop up his business empire.
BauMax, which lost 189 million euros ($244 million) in 2013, at one stage had 158 outlets, almost half of them in Austria and the rest in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.