Dacia, OMV Petrom SA, Rompetrol Rafinare and Rompetrol Downstream are the only 2008 top ten companies that remained among the top ten in the past decade, even though both the leader and the top three changed in the meantime.
The 2008 leader, oil company OMV Petrom SA dropped to third by 2017, but remains the most profitable of the top ten. The oil and gas producer held by Austria’s OMV lost the top spot to Dacia in 2014, while its fuel retail unit (OMV Petrom Marketing) climbed to the second place with 15 billion lei (EUR3.21 billion) revenue.
The decline of the heavy industry can be seen in the results of the steel mill in Galati, fourth in 2008 with RON7 billion and 21st in 2017, with RON4.6 billion revenue. The changes in the makeup of the top ten meant two discount retailers, Kaufland and Lidl climbed into it.
The presence of three grocery retail chains among the ten largest companies in Romania’s economy – Kaufland, Carrefour and Lidl, show that consumer spending has been the real driver of the economy in the past decade.
The biggest surprise of the past decade is the entry among the top ten in 2017 of Star Assembly in Sebes, Alba County (central Romania), a business that did not exist in 2008 and saw a surge in sales, following a EUR300 million greenfield investment by Germany’s Daimler. Star Assembly became the second largest exporter in Romania’s economy in 2017, after Automobile Dacia.
The ten largest companies posted RON70 billion sales and almost RON5 billion profit and had 77,000 employees in 2008. A decade later, the top ten local companies posted RON112 billion sales, RON5.6 billion net profit and had only 60,000 employees. Streamlining, and the changes in retail and industry thus show in results and all top ten companies were in the black in 2017, for the first time in a decade.(EUR1=RON4.6586)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)