Serbian Public Companies Among Central Europe’s Big Earners

Although the vast majority of state-owned companies in Serbia are debt-makers, Deloitte's latest report showed that in terms of the most successful companies in the country, firms in which the state holds a stake are ahead of private businesses.

This year's list of top 500 companies from Central Europe, based on their sales revenues in 2013, includes ten companies from Serbia, two more than the last year.

With 2.29 billion euro revenues in 2013, Petroleum Industry of Serbia, NIS, which is majority owned by Russia's Gazprom with the state holding just over a quarter of the stock, is the best-ranked and holds 63rd place in the overall 500.

The second best-ranked Serbian company is Serbian Electric Power Industry, EPS, which was ranked 85th, while the third-ranked is Fiat in 115th place.

Fiat, which received subsidises from Serbian government when entering the country, made the Deloitte list for the first time.

The fourth on the list is Delhaize Serbia, a private company that owns the chain of popular Maxi supermarkets, and was ranked 228th overall.  Delhaize is followed by private energy trading company EFT Investments, which was ranked 261st overall.

EFT Investments showed a significant drop from the last year when it was ranked 61st.

The sixth company from Serbia on this year's list is state-owned Srbijagas, in 387th place, followed by private companies Tarkett Backa Palanka in 418th, supermarket chain Mercator-S in 427th, and Idea Belgrade in 490th.

This year, 42 companies from Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina made Deloitte's list, but none from Kosovo or Montenegro.