The magic one-billion-euro revenue mark was crossed by 54 companies from eight of the new EU member states last year, and among the 1,000 major companies from the new EU members, one tenth are Slovenian, according to the latest issue of a Slovenian business weekly published on Monday.
Slovenia's leading company, according to Gospodarski vestnik, is oil trader Petrol, which ranks 40th on the general list, with revenues of EUR 1.2bn.
Slovenia's second strongest company is the Renault-owned car maker Revoz with revenues of EUR 767m, lagging behind at n. 80.
Other successful Slovenian companies on the list include the bank Nova Ljubljanska banka (81st), retailer Mercator (86th), pharmaceutical company Lek (97th), and home appliance manufacturer Gorenje (107th).
Further down the list are hardware retailer Merkur (126th), car-seat cover manufacturer Prevent (160th), oil retailer OMV Istrabenz (182nd), drug maker Krka (189th), power company Holding Slovenske elektrarne (192th), and Telekom Slovenije (210th).
The list includes 442 Polish, 207 Hungarian, 171 Czech, 59 Slovak, 22 Baltic, and 99 Slovenian companies. According to the number of companies qualifying for the list per million of citizens, Slovenia is far ahead of the other new EU members, the weekly notes.
Slovenia is doing relatively well in terms of net profit, and has a share of 6 percent among the analysed countries, which points to the fact that Slovenian companies had more net revenues than other new EU members over the period in question.
According to the absolute number of companies on the list, Slovenia can hardly measure up to bigger EU newcomers due to its small economy, although official statistic data (e.g. GDP per capita) point to significant differences in economic development.
The facts that these countries (Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary) exceed Slovenia's average and that billion-worth net investments are rolling into them suggest that in the future there will be even fewer Slovenian companies among major companies from new EU member states. This will mainly depend on convergence, uneven economic growth among the countries, and most likely, investments of multinationals.
Interestingly, the success of none of the major Slovenian companies that have made it to the list is the result of direct foreign investment.
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