Bulgarian Business Boom: 11 Homegrown Companies Crack Top 100 in South East Europe

Eleven Bulgarian companies, three less than last year, are among the hundred largest companies in South-East Europe. This shows the latest SEE TOP 100 ranking of the regional business news, information and analysis platform SeeNews.com, the platform announced.

The largest company in our country and the seventh largest in Southeast Europe is the oil refining company “LUKOIL Neftohim Burgas” with revenues of 4.4 billion euros for 2023.

Among the rest, there are the biggest Bulgarian companies “Aurubis Bulgaria” (11th place in South East Europe) “LUKOIL Bulgaria” (17th place), “Astra Bioplant” (33rd place), “National Electric Company” (39th place), “BE Glass Bulgaria” (50th place), “Bulgargaz” (59th place), Kozloduy NPP (61 sites), “Kaufland Bulgaria” (63rd place), Lidl Bulgaria (site 70) a “Saxony” (position 83).

SEE TOP 100 is an annual ranking of the largest companies by total revenue of the previous year registered in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.

In last year’s edition of the site, there were more Bulgarian companies – 14, the largest indigenous company being the copper processor and supplier of non-ferrous metals “Aurubis Bulgaria” (with revenues of 4.2 billion euros for 2022).

Last year “LUKOIL Neftohim Burgas”, now identified as the largest in terms of revenue in Bulgaria, it was ranked 13th among local companies and 83rd in the region.

Kozloduy NPP also leading the ranking in 2023, occupying 20th place in terms of revenue in South East Europe and third in Bulgaria.

For the third year in a row, the Romanian gas and oil giant “OMV Petrom”which is part of the Austrian group “OMV”, tops the ranking with 7.7 billion euros in revenue – 42 percent less than in 2022.

In the first place in terms of profit in the region is another Romanian energy company, “Hydroelectricity”. The company, which went public in 2023, ended the year with a profit of almost 1.3 billion euros.

After a year of record sales and profits, in 2023 the largest companies in the region will see revenue fall by 11 percent to 198.4 billion euros, the site shows.

Almost half of the companies in the SEE TOP 100 end 2023 with lower revenues. However, their total profit rose slightly – up to 10.5 billion euros compared to 10.3 billion euros a year earlier.

With the normalization of the prices of energy raw materials on the global markets, the revenue of the largest gas and oil companies in our region has shrunk by 20 percent, but these companies continue to have the largest share in the site.