Dedeman is the only constant in the top three, while Tinmar-Ind climbed to second place beating another energy business, Oscar Downstream, and RCS&RDS traded places with one of businessman Ioan Niculae’s companies.
ZF has been compiling the entrepreneur-owned company ranking since 2008.
Dedeman posted more than 3 billion lei (over EUR680 million) revenue for the first time in 2014, while in 2008 it had not even made its first billion.
“We will see more Romanian companies going over RON5 billion sales in two years at most,” says Florin Paunescu, assistant director Financial Advisory Services with Deloitte Romania.
The largest 100 entrepreneur-owned companies posted 58 billion lei (EUR13 billion) revenue last year, up 5% on 2013. The top 100 entrepreneurs account for 5% of the total revenue of the companies in Romania (RON1,140 billion), comparable to top three multinationals.
In 2008, Romania’s economy only had five entrepreneurial companies with more than one billion lei sales and last year their number rose to 13. While the leading multinationals operate in energy, retail and auto industry, the largest entrepreneurial companies operate in DIY retail, energy, telecom, pharmaceuticals, industry and computer and electronics retail.
“We’re just warming up. We now have to have the courage to build, invest, dream, because I believe our time has come in Romania,” says Radu Timis, a businessman who built CrisTim (two companies among the top 100 and more than 2,000 employees).
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)