Sixteen Bulgarian companies made it to the third annual edition of SEE TOP 100 ranking in terms of total revenue in 2009.

The rankings were prepared by SeeNews in strategic partnership with global management consultancy A.T. Kearney and in exclusive content partnership with Euromonitor International, a September 27 2010 media statement said.
 
Oil refiner Lukoil Neftochim, majority owned by Russia’s Lukoil, keeps its third place in the 2009 ranking with a total revenue of 2.163 billion euro, 38.99 per cent down from 2008.
 
The Bulgarian companies in SEE TOP 100 contributed 12.5 billion euro to the combined total revenue of 78 billion euro of the 100 best performing firms in South Eastern Europe in 2009.
 
The SEE TOP 100 ranking comprises the biggest non-financial companies in the region with entrants from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.
 
The third annual SEE TOP 100 is based on a pool of more than 1200 companies from South Eastern Europe, the media statement said.
 
Romania’s largest oil and gas group, OMV Petrom, leads the ranking for a second year running with a total revenue of 3.388 billion euro in 2009, followed by Croatian oil and gas company INA-Industrija Nafte with a total revenue of 2.7 billion euro.
 
Traditionally, companies from the oil and gas sector perform best in the region. The 24 firms from this industry that enter the ranking, however, have a significantly lower combined total revenue of 25.6 billion euro in 2009, 28 per cent down year-on-year, according to the media statement.
 
Unchanged from 2008, electricity companies display the second highest combined total revenue in 2009 – 13.5 billion euro generated by 22 companies that entered the ranking. The result is less than one per cent higher year-on-year.
 
Companies dealing in wholesale and retail trade show a modest, yet the sharpest rise in combined total revenue among the top five industries in 2009, 1.4 per cent up to 12.9 billion euro.
 
Companies from this sector also have the second highest combined net profit of 222.3 million euro in 2009 versus 250.5 million in 2008.
 
The most profitable sector out of the 13 industries included in the 2009 ranking is telecommunications. The 15 companies from this sector that entered the 2009 ranking had a combined net profit of 1.54 billion euro, slightly lower than 1.62 billion euro in 2008.
 
The 100 largest banks in the region, double the number in the previous ranking, were ranked in terms of total assets in 2009.
 
The ranking shows that despite the financial crisis, most of the 100 largest banks in the SEE region increased their assets last year with growth rate ranging from 0.5 per cent to 110 per cent.
 
Most banks in the region, however, either halved their net profit or turned to loss in 2009 as the financial crisis and the economic downturn took their toll.
 
One of the main reasons for the drop in profit was the rise in provisions that banks set aside to compensate for the increasing number of non-performing loans in their portfolios.
 
Slovenia’s largest bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), leads the SEE TOP 100 Banks ranking for a second year running, ending 2009 with 15.5 billion euro in total assets.
 
However, the bank reported an unconsolidated net loss of 23.6 million euro in 2009 due to higher provisions. In 2008, NLB had a net profit of 49.2 million euro.
 
Romania’s largest bank, Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), occupied the second place in the 2009 ranking, unchanged from 2008. It had total assets worth 15.3 billion euro at the end of 2009. BCR ended last year with the highest net profit among the SEE TOP 100 banks, 204.8 million euro, or less than half of its 2008 net profit of 489.7 million euro.
 
Croatia’s Zagrebacka Banka (ZABA) ranked third with 12.7 billion euro in total assets at the end of 2009, advancing one position from 2008. ZABA also showed the third highest profit among the top 100 banks in Southeast Europe – 166.4 million euro, down from 190.4 million euro in 2008.
 
The leader in the SEE Top 100 Insurers ranking, Slovenia’s Zavarovalnica Triglav, also leads its domestic market in terms of gross premium income. The Slovenian insurer ended 2009 with a gross written premium of some 744.5 million euro, slightly down from the previous year’s 754 million euro but almost double the premium income of second-ranked Croatia Osiguranje.
 
Zavarovalnica Triglav turned to a net loss of 1.8 million euro in 2009 from a net profit of 14.9 million euro a year earlier.
 
Croatia Osiguranje has a 2009 gross written premium income of some 415 million euro, down from 443 million euro in 2008. Despite the fall the company shows a higher net profit of 9.5 million euro in 2009, compared to 8.9 million euro in 2008.
 
Romanian insurer Allianz-Tiriac Asigurari ranks third with a gross written premium of 304 million euro in 2009, down from 347 million euro in the previous year. The company had a net profit of 7.0 million euro last year.
 
The leader in the SEE TOP 100 Per Capita in 2009 again is Slovenian blue-chip fuel retailer Petrol, followed by the country’s largest food retailer Mercator. Slovenian automobile manufacturer Revoz, a unit of Renault, advanced one position to the third place in the 2009 ranking.