Ziarul Financiar sought to identify the most profitable companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange both in the recession period of the past two years and a half, and in the boom period Romania experienced in 2006, 2007 and the first half of 2008.
As revealed by its analysis, the companies with the highest ROE on the bourse in 2006-2010 were vacuum cleaner manufacturer Electroarges Curtea de Arges (ELGS.RO), aluminum profile producer Alumil Rom Industry (ALU.RO) and BRD Societe Generale (BRD.RO), with rates that topped 22% on average per year. The indicator can be watched against the price-to-book ratio (P/B), which can indicate how expensive or cheap a share is against equity.
Regional investment funds (SIF) are also among the stocks that
have registered high ROE levels in the past five years, even as the
financial sector has been one of the hardest hit by the crisis.
This is mainly due to the sale of strategic stakes during the
crisis.
The Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) offers one of the highest ROE
rates, 18.5% in the past five years, but is traded at the highest
P/B, namely 3.3.
Besides Alumil shares (P/B of 0.69), the bourse stocks that have posted high ROE levels in the past five years and are relatively cheap against P/B include those of Rompetrol Well Services (PTR.RO), the oil product unit of Rompetrol, Teraplast Bistrita (TRP.RO) building materials producer, Banca Transilvania (TLV.RO) and SIF Transilvania (SIF3.RO). All these companies reached annual ROE indicators of above 14% and are currently trading at P/B close or below 1.