2021: Largest companies, firms and institutions in Slovakia

More than 500 companies filled out the questionnaire for the Largest in Business yearbook. The latest edition is available in our online shop.

This article, as well as the yearbook, provides information not only about the largest companies in 50 categories but also specifies which sectors were successful during the pandemic and which companies were able to grow in challenging conditions.

After many years, there is a new leader among retail chains; the arrival of the Clarion brand, part of the hotel segment, was announced in Slovakia and the largest taxpayer from the field of non-financial enterprises contributed almost €240 mil. to the government budget.

The Largest in Business rankings was created in cooperation with the SME daily and the Finstat company. The key parametre for these rankings was revenue, but in some categories, it was a combination of several criteria (e.g. turnover, number of employees, etc.). Within the financial sector, the ranking was typically based on asset value.

In this article, the names of all top-ranked companies are published. The detailed results with comprehensive information about all listed companies as well as the names of their head representatives are available in the Largest in Business yearbook.

Finance and consulting

Among the largest banks, Slovenská Sporiteľňa dominates the field, followed by VÚB and Tatra Banka.

There is a visible decrease not only in the number of brick-and-mortar branches but also in the number of employees. While Slovenská Sporiteľňa had 233 branches in 2020, the number decreased to 205 in 2021. The second bank closed 12.3% of its branches and the third 14.4%.

A total of almost 11,000 people worked for the three largest banks, 6.5 % less compared to 2019.

Most of the 10 largest banks are owned by foreign corporations in Austria, Belgium, and Italy. Slovaks own only Poštová Banka, Prima Banka and, partially, J&T Banka. This year, the market saw the merger of OTP bank with ČSOB. This helps close the gap between ČSOB and the third rank, Tatra Banka.

Among insurance companies, the top three ranks are taken by Allianz, Kooperatíva and MetLife. Compared to the banking sector, the number of employees and branches was stable.

There is a noticeable connection between leasing companies and bank branches, and the order of companies is as follows: ČSOB Leasing, UniCredit Leasing, VÚB Leasing.

The areas of auditing, accounting, taxation and consulting had the strongest representation in the Big Four made up of PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG. The first one mentioned is the biggest one and also operates a shared service centre in Slovakia. Within its services, EY excels most in business consulting. The VGD company is close to the Big Four and its Belgian-born manager Bart Waterloos has been running this company in Slovakia since 2004.

Please note that in this category, only companies offering services mainly outside of their own corporation were evaluated, as opposed to shared service centres or companies’ internal financial divisions, which operate with a high number of accountants.

In the ranking of law firms, we see a balanced representation of international brands and Slovak law firms within the top 10. The Soukeník - Štrpka law firm has ranked first for five consecutive years. This segment is analysed in more detail in a series of articles. Apart from the ranking of largestlawfirms, it also includes rankings in fields such as M&A, Banking & Finance, Real Estate & Development, Intellectual property, Litigation & Arbitration, Labour law, Restructuring & Insolvency, Regulation, Competition law and Commercial law.

Trade

For the first time, the biggest retail chain in Slovakia was Lidl, followed by Tesco. While the revenue difference between these two chains in 2014 was more than €400 million, last year Lidl overgrew its competitor by almost €120 million. Billa has the highest number of stores among retail chains, exactly 155.

Avion has the largest total area among shopping malls. You can fit more than 15 soccer fields in this 100,100 m² area. Almost half of it is taken up by the Ikea department store.

The greatest number of shops, 250, is found in Nivy centrum. This compound project is a combination of the international bus terminal, a shopping centre, a market and a high-rise administrative building. The green roof includes a running track, exercise and picnic zones, a community garden and children's playgrounds. It was opened to the public on September 30, 2021.

A change in the mall ranking is expected once Eurovea is expanded.

Demand for new cars decreased in 2020 when there were 82,676 new cars registered. This is a 25%-decrease compared to 2019. With car dealers and importers we see a strong representation of the German company Volkswagen. The largest company in this segment is Škoda Auto, the second is the company Porsche Slovakia (importer of the brand Porsche, Audi, Seat and Volkswagen) and the third-largest is Mercerdes-Benz.

Strong economic pillar

Besides the automotive industry, shared service centers (BSC) developed into a strong sector of Slovakia’s economy. BSCs employ tens of thousands of highly qualified people.

According to the BSC Forum, these companies contributed €550 million in employee taxes and levies to the state budget. The biggest BSC is the American company IBM with approximately 5,000 employees. As the company announced the separation of its managed infrastructure services business into Kyndryl, its BSC in Slovakia will probably split in 2022. Others of significance include AT&T, Dell, Deutsche Telekom, Henkel, Johnson Controls, and Accenture.

"Pandemics and crises force companies to look more intensively for ways to increase their extent of adaptability to new conditions,“ Peter Rusiňák, AmCham senior policy manager and AmCham Business Service Center Forum (BSCF) coordinator, told The Slovak Spectator.

Henkel's Bratislava-based business centre has established a decent IT infrastructure and developed more than 300 robotic process automation solutions over the last few years. Thanks to this level of maturity, the pandemic did not have a negative impact on its digital transformation and robotisation.

Human capital

We distinguish between three types of companies in human resources.

The first is temporary employment agencies, which send employees mainly to industrial companies. The biggest employment agency is Index Nosluš.

The second type is recruitment agencies, in which Manpower ranks first. In 2020, the company held 1,235 positions for its clients. “The pandemic has had a deep impact on our attitude towards work, planning and the management of people,” said Zuzana Rumiz, the company's country manager.

In February 2020, the investment agreement between Gi Group (better known under the brand Grafton in Slovakia) and the Work Service company was signed. The fusion was concluded in early 2021. Data concerning the merger can be found in the rankings under the Grafton brand. These two companies ranked fourth and ninth respectively in the ranking of HR firms published in 2020.

Other typical brands in this segment are Adecco and Lugera.

For companies that engage in Executive Search, the trust of clients is vital since they are entrusted with the mandate to fill key positions. That is why assignments in this segment typically mean that the client pays part of the price when the specification of the person the client needs is assigned to the agency.

The biggest company in this field is Amrop Jenewein, followed by Menkyna & Partners.

“Even though recruitment experienced a dramatic slowdown, Executive Search has not been that affected,” said Matej Taliga, the client partner of Executive Search rankings at Amrop Jenewein.

One significant challenge was finding the right talent as people were more risk-averse and thus reluctant to consider a career move, resulting in a reduced pool of leaders open to discussion.

Transport

Both areas of the category are dominated by state-run companies.

In postal and courier services, Slovenská Pošta tops the rankings. In logistics, the biggest company is the Cargo railway company (Železničná spoločnosť Cargo).

The largest private logistics firm is Budamar, which has a strong position in railway and intermodal transport. Tatravagónka belongs to Budamar’s mutual companies and is a leading manufacturer of railway wagons in Europe.

The final number confirms that thanks to fast development, online shopping courier services had one of the best years in their history with huge growth in their turnover and number of employees. The company Packeta, eighth in the ranking, more than doubled its revenues during 2020 to €20.4 million.

Real estate

The construction of the Bratislava ring road is reflected in the ranking of construction companies. The D4R7 consortium had the highest revenue last year, followed by Doprastav. The concrete and cement manufacturer Danucem also ranked well.

“The pandemic year suppressed construction for a while due to the shortage of workers, problems with the supplies of some construction materials, and the significant slow-down in issuing permits,” said Ján Krnáč, executive director of Cresco Real Estate.

His company placed first in the ranking of residential real estate developers, mainly thanks to its project Slnečnice in southern Bratislava, launched 10 years ago. It is now home to more than 5,000 residents.

“After the project is completed in 10-15 years, their number will at least double,” Krnáč said.

J&T Real Estate, which was listed second in the ranking, was the developer that sold the most flats in 2020: 821. Its executive director, Pavol Pelikán, said this was mostly thanks to the Ovocné Sady project in Bratislava’s borough of Trnávka.

Clients were also interested in flats in Slovakia’s first skyscraper, Eurovea Tower, part of the Eurovea Riverside project on the Danube riverbank. The construction of the skyscraper has progressed and the first residential floor will be completed in June, after which one floor should be added every 11 days.

“If everything goes well, we should reach the final height of the skyscraper in a year and three months,” Pelikán said.

The third-biggest developer in real estate was Penta Real Estate. The company completed 67,730 m² of residential space and more than 30,000 m² of offices. It is known for its Sky Park projects by Zaha Hadid Architects and the new quarter of Bory in western Bratislava.

The biggest real estate agency chain is Re/Max with 260 agents and 45 branches around Slovakia. For the sale or purchase of property the company usually charges a broker’s commission of 3 to 5 percent. The largest classical real estate agency is Brothers Real, which had the highest revenue on the market. The company services gained almost €2.1 million in revenue. The company has 19 agents and specialises in residential and retail property.

IT

The IT field has a strong local brand representation.

The largest IT company, Eset, has surpassed last year’s mark of €500 million in revenue. Other large Slovak companies are Asseco, Soitron and Tempest.

Pixel Federation was the jumper of the year thanks to the growth of its revenues from €32 million in 2019 to €48 million in 2020. People around the world play its TrainStation game and the company's business belongs to another segment positively affected by the pandemic.

The ASBIS and Westech groups are successful in selling hardware and telecom equipment.

Half of the 10 largest companies in this segment have a strong representation of mobile phones in their portfolio. The best-sold brand in Slovakia is Samsung; however, this company does not publish its financial data and it is not included in the ranking. Its long-time competitor Huawei is quickly losing its sales on the market and Xiaomi made it for the first time to the Top 10.

The top three in telecom services are Slovak Telekom, Orange and O2. Employment in these services is fairly stable. Compared to 2015, employment grew the most in O2 (from 420 to 701 employees) and Swan (from 239 to 367 employees).

Education and foreign languages

The biggest language school is Jazyková škola. International House has the highest number of students. In the past year, there were 4,000 of them. The school offers seven language courses. There is the possibility of studying 19 languages at Berlitz and it is mostly on the market. The school offers Chinese and Arabic among other languages.

Among universities, Comenius University (UK) has the highest number of students. The second highest is the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava (STU) and the third is the Technical University in Košice (TUKE).

Compared to 2015, there is a significant drop in the overall number of students (UK dropped from 26,600 to 23,700, STU from 15,403 to 10,700 and TUKE from 9,700 to 9,300).

The worst situation is in the city of Nitra with two universities which lost in the last five years 3,600 or 23% of its students.

The number of teachers has developed accordingly. UK saw growth from 2,200 to 2,474, STU saw a decrease from 1,127 to 994 and TUKE saw a decrease from 822 to 728.

Media, advertising and printing houses

The largest advertising company is the media agency Unimedia with a revenue of €59.2 million.

The highest rank in PR goes to Seesame, which is the only company on the Slovak market that received royalties for its PR services amounting to more than €3 million.

Based on revenues, the largest electronic media company was Markíza with six TV stations. The second was state television and radio RTVS and the third was JOJ. Among private radio companies, the most successful was Rádio Expres.

The strongest publishing house was News and Media Holding with a revenue of €30.4 million and titles such as Plus Jeden Deň (tabloid daily), Plus 7 dní (weekly), and Trend (economic weekly).

The second publishing house, Petit Press, had a revenue of €21 million. It represents media such as the SME daily, the regional MY weekly, the Korzár daily and the monthly business magazine Index.

Mafra, the publisher of the Hospodárske Noviny business daily, is third between publishing houses.

Tourism

Travel is the most affected sector by the pandemic. Even though the ranking focuses only on the largest hotels in Bratislava and spas in Slovakia, there is a visibly huge impact on numbers.

More than half of the reviewed hotels laid-off half of their employees. In five-star hotels, 30% were let go.

The largest hotel in Bratislava is the Crowne Plaza with 224 rooms and congress spaces for 898 participants.

The second is Grand Hotel River Park with 231 rooms and 610 places for guests during congress meetings.

The four-star hotel with the biggest accommodation capacities goes to Park Inn with 240 rooms.

According to a report received during the collection of data for this yearbook, Mercuri Hotel is becoming a part of the Czech company CPI Hotels. The new owner decided to change the chain under which the hotel operates. On January 14, 2022, it will become the first Clarion hotel in Slovakia.

Spas in Slovakia are also experiencing challenging times due to the pandemic as reviewed companies lost 33% of their revenues. The top position goes to the Kúpele Piešťany spa, which also operates facilities in Smrdáky. Kúpele Piešťany holds the largest accommodation capacity with 2,453 beds.

Industry and infrastructure

The automotive industry dominates in almost every branch of this segment. Jaguar's new factory in Nitra is gradually advancing and becoming one of the largest companies. This year it ranked 16^th in the engineering industry. The top three places in this category are taken by Volkswagen, Kia and Stellantis, which manufactures the brands Peugeot and Citroën.

Germany and the Republic of Korea dominate as the home countries of the mother companies operating engineering and electrotechnical plants in Slovakia.

The regulated energy sector still has a strong ownership representation in Slovakia.

The paper and wood processing industries have a large representation in northern countries.

For agriculture, Denmark tops the ranking. Five out of the ten biggest companies in this category are Danish-owned and have a significant swine breeding business.

Industrial companies that reached revenues in Slovakia of over €2 billion are as follows: Volkswagen (€9.8 billion), Kia (€4.6 billion), Stellantis (€3.4 billion), Slovenské Elektrárne (€2.9 billion), and Slovnaft (€2.7 billion).

Volkswagen placed first among taxpayers from the field of non-financial entities. In 2020, the company paid €90.4 million in income tax (corporate and personal) and €147.5 million in contributions paid by employee and employer. This ranking was compiled by BMB Partners.

The position of the largest state-owned companies was influenced by total assets.

The National Highway Company ranks first. Its assets reached €10.2 billion in value.

Second place goes to Železnice Slovenskej Republiky (ŽSR) which handles railways and safeguards the infrastructure for transport services. Their overall assets equal €3.7 billion in value.

Third place goes to the Slovenský Plynárenský Priemysel (SPP) gas utility, whose assets are valued at €2.8 billion.

This article mentions the partial results of 50 rankings. The detailed results are available in the Largest in Business yearbook, which you can purchase in our online shop.