63 Romanian companies in Coface’s CEE Top 500; Romania, ranked fourth in the region

The highest ranked Romanian company, 17, is Automobile Dacia, which ended 2015 with 4.2 billion euros in turnover. OMV Petrom Marketing SRL ranked 24 with a 3.2 billion euro turnover, and OMV Petrom SA with 3 billion euros. The fourth Romanian company in the ranking is Rompetrol Rafinare, with a 2.1 billion euro turnover in 2015.

“The Romanian companies’ turnovers is up by 2.4 percent since last year, while net profits dropped by 12 percent,” Coface Romania country manager Eugen Anicescu said in a press conference.

One in five Romanian companies reported loses in 2015, the same as Polish companies, while one in 10 Czech and Hungarian firms reported negative results.

“Shareholders of Romanian companies listed in our ranking are 21 percent local, the rest are multinational. In Poland, the situation is different, with 43 percent local shareholders and in the Czech Republic, with 37 percent local shareholders. It’s very clear that we have much less local capital,” Anicescu said.

Romania’s main growth engine was consumption, as opposed to other countries in the region, where European funds had a greater impact.

“We noticed that Romania has the highest insolvency rate in the region, 4.05 percent, while Poland has the lowest, 0.04 percent,” Coface’s country manager said.

“The position of Romanian companies in Top 500 is does not match the potential of the country’s economy. The evolution of state-owned or former-state-owned companies is not comparable to those in other countries. State-owned companies experienced a late restructuring process, and they are far behind the achievements in other countries. For instance, Petrom was privatized very late. Mol, on the contrary, made it to top 3 in the region, while Petrom is limited to the local market. Romanian companies are generally limited to the Romanian market and the country misses a lot of its potential, due to lack of vision of expanding in the region,” Anicescu explained, according to Agerpres.

He stressed that restructuring state-owned companies could lead to a real increase in turnover; he gave the example of Hidroelectrica energy producer, which, after four years of insolvency, ranks 252 in 2016.

Romania, as a country, ranks 4 in the region, after Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. “Although Romania ranks third in terms of GDP in the region, we are not among the top 3 countries,” he pointed out.

The companies in Top 500 reported and overall turnover of 593 billion euros. The top 3 companies in the region were Polish PKN Orlen, GN Hungary and Hungarian MOL. (source: nineoclock.ro)