Romania had the highest number of entrants in the ranking of the most profitable companies in Southeast Europe (SEE) in 2013. The best represented industry in the ranking was energy, with nine companies.
Romanian companies firmed their positions in the ranking of the most profitable companies in SEE in 2013, taking four of the top five places with oil and gas group OMV Petrom at the helm. In the 2012 ranking, there was only one Romanian entrant, Romgaz, among the top five most profitable companies.
Romania had a total of 12 representatives in the ranking, one more compared to the previous year. This comes as little surprise considering that the country managed to record one of the highest economic growth rates in the region, of 3.5%, in 2013.
OMV Petrom, which also led the TOP 100 companies ranking in terms of revenue in 2013, unseated from the top Croatian shipbuilder Brodosplit-Brodogradiliste, recording a return on revenue of 25.27% versus 19.51% a year earlier. In 2012 OMV Petrom ranked sixth on the list.
The second, third and fifth place were taken by Romania’s Romgaz, Hidroelectrica and Continental Automotive Products.
Croatia’s Hrvatski Telekom was the only non-Romanian company that managed to squeeze in among the top five on the back of a 21.68% return on revenue in 2013, down from 23.24%.
Five telcos and as many electricity companies made it into the ranking.
Oil and gas companies took four of the twenty spots in 2013 ranking. The oil and gas sector retained its lead in the ranking of the most profitable industries in SEE, despite a 5.45% drop in the total revenues of the top 100 oil and gas companies in the region and a decrease in their total net profit to 659 million euro from 1.09 billion euro a year earlier.
The pharmaceutical industry saw its participants in the ranking in 2013 drop to two from three. Slovenia’s Krka occupied the 10th spot in the ranking, down by one place from the previous year. It recorded a return on revenue of 14.64%, slightly down from 14.59% in 2012. Its peer Lek ranked 14th with 11.47% return on revenue versus 11.17% a year earlier.
At the fifth spot, car tire maker Continental Automotive Products was the only representative of the rubber and rubber products industry in the ranking.
The furniture and decoration and the tobacco industries too had one representative each – the Romanian units of Austrian wood processing company Holzindustrie Schweighofer and of British American Tobacco.