In Central Europe, the leader in terms of the revenue remains non-challenged PKN Orlen. Further on there is Hungarian energy group MOL and Czech Skoda Auto. Ukrainian energy company DTEK is worth mentioning as it climbed from 32nd position to 7th in the CT Top 500 ranking developed by Deloitte in cooperation with Rzeczpospolita newspaper. The report is based on the analysis of the top companies in 18 countries of Central Europe and in the Ukraine, and presents 500 top businesses. The greatest number of those companies is located in Poland (166) and the Czech Republic (87), and the biggest growth of companies (3) took place in the Ukraine.
The results of the analysis show that it total the revenues of the top 500 companies in the region in 2012 amounted to 724 billion euro, that is 3.8% more than in the previous year. Still, the economic slowdown is noticeable when we compare 2010 and 2011 when there was an increase by 13 percent.
Average dynamics of revenues dropped to the level of 3.3% in 2012, compared to 9.8% in the previous year. In the first quarter of 2013 it was still dropping and reached the level of -0.5%. Economic surroundings are unsteady. There are many challenges waiting for the companies in the region, which doubtlessly hinders achieving a steady increase of revenues and incomes, which are necessary to multiply the assets according to the expectations of investors and stakeholders – says Alastair Teare, Managing Director at Deloitte Central Europe.
The largest company is still PKN Orlen which additionally increases the distance to the Hungarian MOL – its main competitor in the region. The revenues of the Polish company increased in 2012 by 10.5 percent, when in the case of MOL it was only 0.6 percent.
There are 63 new companies in the ranking. The only significant change in the first ten is the Ukrainian company DTEK which entered the 7th position. Jeronimo Martins dropped from the top 10 to the 12th position. Thus, in the top 10 there are only two companies (Skoda and Metinvest)are not dealing with the energy sector – says Tomasz Ochrymowicz, Partner, Deloitte Financial Advisory Poland.
Among the Polish companies Grupa Azoty made the biggest progress – from 144th position to 98th. There is one new Polish company in the ranking and the country remains the leader in the region. 58% of Polish companies noted an increase in the revenues in the researched period. Poland covers 34% of total revenues of all the companies in the ranking.
Deloitte also presented a ranking of top banks in Central Europe in which PKO Bank Polski is still the leader. The second position is taken by Czech CSOB, and the third by Bank Pekao. ING Bank Śląski moved up by three positions taking the eighth place. Currently, in the ranking of top 50 banks 15 come from Poland which makes it also the leader of this classification. In 2012 the sum of the assets of the top banks increased by 6.6 percent on a comparable basis. The importance of the banking sector for the economy of Central Europe is best exemplified by the fact that 8 of them is in the group of 25 companies with the highest capitalization in the region – says Tomasz Ochrymowicz.
The ranking provides also the list of top 50 insurers, dominated by PZU. The ranking presents 17 Polish companies.
Among all the branches analyzed in the ranking the construction branch seems to be in the worst shape as the dynamics of its revenue dropped by 11.7 percent. This year’s edition of the report includes only eight companies form the sector.
How do the top companies cope with the economic slowdown? The companies which we talked to when we were working on the report say that they become more and more focused on strategies. One of our interviewees said that companies pay more attention to long-term plans, to the quality of their products and services, professional knowledge and the spirits of the staff, and above all to economic risk management. Thus, there is no doubt that when the economy will start growing, the top companies in Central Europe will be the leaders when it comes to using the potential of the region – says Alastair Teare.