Market entry in practice.

Romanian building materials group TeraPlast announced in June 2026 that it would take over a polyethylene pipe factory in Okondo, near Bilbao, from the Aliaxis portfolio. The deal completed on 1 July.

Buying a running plant gave TeraPlast 16,000 tonnes of annual capacity and a team of 79 people. The site came with existing customers and had generated €29.4 million in revenue in 2025.

TeraPlast inaugurated the renamed TeraPlast Iberia factory on 23 July 2026. It plans to invest €4 million over three years to raise output by 60% and lift the EBITDA margin above 10%.

A carve-out from a larger group can offer a fast route into a market, and the site can then serve as a hub for neighbouring regions. TeraPlast intends to supply Western Europe and North Africa from Okondo.

Dutch non-food discounter Action opened its first Croatian store in Sesvete, near Zagreb, on 11 March 2026, making Croatia its fifteenth market. Its entry into Romania, its fourteenth, came in September 2025, and Slovenia, its sixteenth, came in September 2026.

Action announced the move in 2025 and appointed a regional manager for Croatia and Slovenia ahead of opening. The first store carried the same range of around 6,000 products found in its other markets, and a second store in Ivanec followed about a week later.

The Sesvete opening produced the second-highest first-day sales in Action's history. The non-food discounter did keep its promise to open more than one store per day: 384 new branches were added. The company ended the first quarter of 2026 with 3,335 stores in 15 countries and opened its first store in Slovenia that September.

Pairing Croatia with neighbouring Slovenia under one regional team gave Action a ready platform for its next market.

French family logistics group Labatut, founded in 1920, entered the Spanish market in mid-2026 by acquiring all of Navanor, a family-owned road transport operator based in Navarra.

Labatut chose a business with a similar ownership culture in a Spanish region that borders France, giving it an established haulage operation close to its home network.

Navanor now operates as part of the Labatut Group, giving the French business a Spanish operating company of its own.

For a mid-sized operator, buying a comparable family business across the border can be a measured first step abroad.