Daniela Schoppmeyer, the majority shareholder and general manager of Faberrom, a company that took over in the 1990s most of the spaces of the former APACA clothing factory in western Bucharest, is the new owner of half of the emblematic Scala residential block, on Magheru Boulevard, Profit.ro reported.
Schoppmeyer bought the 27 apartments and studios, as well as the commercial space on the ground floor of the Scala block, owned by the heirs of the Bragadiru family, for an undisclosed amount.
Completed in 1936 on a plot of land belonging to industrialist Dumitru Marinescu Bragadiru, one of the richest and most influential Romanians of the time, the Scala building was designed by architect Rudolf Fränkel, one of the leaders of the avant-garde movement in Berlin, an important figure of the 1920s–1940s, with remarkable achievements in Germany, England, and Romania.
In 1950, the Scala building was nationalized, but in 2001, a significant part of it was returned to the descendants of the Bragadiru family. The building is set to be consolidated with non-reimbursable funds to protect against earthquakes.
Conceived as a multifunctional complex, the ensemble included, besides the apartment and commercial spaces, the famous Scala Cinema with 860 seats.
Schoppmeyer, now 45, took over the leadership of Faberrom in 2015, after the death of Dănuț Cernea, a former APACA employee who managed a large part of the former communist textile factory. She is married to Christian Schoppmeyer, a former member of the board of directors and sales director of Faberrom, currently sales director of the software company SIMartis Telecom.
The old factory is still operational. Faberrom’s turnover rose to EUR 6.2 million last year, when it recorded a net profit of about EUR 3 million, the best result in the last 18 years. Over this period, the number of the company’s employees decreased from 858 to 66. The factory’s production has dropped from 7,000 products made daily to only 350, according to Profit.ro.
(Photo source: amccrs-pmb.ro)