site.btaBulgaria with 10 Entrants in SeeNews Top 100 of Biggest Companies in SEEurope

ESD 17:31:01 08-10-2019
DT1729ES.114
114 ECONOMY - SOUTHEAST EUROPE - BUSINESSES - TOP 100

Bulgaria with 10 Entrants in
SeeNews Top 100 Ranking of
Biggest Companies in SEEurope

Sofia, October 8 (BTA) - For the twelfth consecutive year, SeeNews ranked the biggest companies in Southeast Europe (SEE) by total revenue in its Top 100 list released on Tuesday. Ten Bulgarian companies ranked among the biggest businesses, with two making it into the top 10.

Steady, consumption-led economic growth and increasing wages brought record-high sales to the 100 biggest companies in Southeast Europe in 2018, as Romania's Automobile Dacia remained leader by turnover, SeeNews says.

For a second consecutive year, Lukoil Neftochim Burgas and Aurubis Bulgaria were among the leading 10 companies in the region, ranking sixth and eighth, respectively. Aurubis Bulgaria was the biggest metals producer in SEE despite a slight decrease in revenue and drop in profit in 2018. Both companies, however, dropped in the TOP 100 SEE ranking from fifth and sixth position, respectively.

The TOP 100 SEE company ranking is dominated by Romania with 54 entrants, followed by Serbia with 13, and Slovenia with 12. Bulgaria and Croatia were represented with 10 and 9 companies, respectively, while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Macedonia had an entrant each. This year, no Albanian and Moldovan businesses made it into the ranking.

Kozloduy N-Plant was the only Bulgarian company to make it into the top 10 most profitable businesses in 2018, assuming eighth place in the ranking, which remained dominated by Romania in terms of entrants, but was led by Serbia's Aerodrom Nikola Tesla and Serbia Zijin Bor Copper.

Three of the 10 companies in the money losers ranking were Bulgarian - Lukoil Neftochim, Natsionalna Elektricheska Kompania and Bulgargaz, holding the second, sixth and eighth positions, respectively.

The combined revenue of the SEE TOP 100 companies expanded by 11 per cent to the record-high 126.3 billion euro ($138.8 billion), whereas their profit amounted to 5.7 billion euro, up by 17 per cent, the twelfth annual edition of the TOP 100 SEE ranking indicates.

SeeNews editor-in-chief Nevena Krasteva commented for BTA's Daily News that Bulgaria has the same number and nearly the same participants as the year before, with the exception of the Kozloduy N-Plant which replaces CEZ. Also, the Bulgarian companies in Top 100 show a higher revenue growth (15 per cent) than the 11-per-cent average for the entire TOP 100.

The Bulgarian companies in the ranking are mostly in the energy and trade sector, said also Krasteva. Unfortunately, no Bulgarian maker of automotive parts has made it into the TOP 100 or is anywhere near, even though it is a strong industry in Southeast Europe.

She also pointed out that Bulgaria has the most entrants in the insurers' ranking, which shows strong competition and a potential for consolidation. LN/LN,DT