2023: We found out who the largest in business are in Slovakia

Hundreds of companies and institutions filled out questionnaires for the Largest in Business yearbook. The latest edition is available in our online shop.

In this story, you will find out which company paid the most in taxes, where are the largest aquaparks or ski resort.

The rankings provide ratings in 50 different categories and show which sectors or companies have grown the most.

In this shorter online version of the story, you can read about all the top-ranked companies. More comprehensive results with detailed information about the largest companies are available in the yearbook, Largest in Business. The project has been created in cooperation with Sme daily, and the FinStat company. The key parameter for these rankings was revenue, but in some categories it was a combination of several criteria, like turnover or the number of employees. Within the financial sector, the ranking was typically based on the value of assets.

Strong economic pillar

Shared service centres (BSCs) are among the most important clients that occupy the most office space in Slovakia. They employ tens of thousands of highly qualified people.

According to the BSC Forum, these companies contributed more than €700 million to the state budget in employment taxes and levies last year. The largest of them is the American firm IBM.

Other important brands operating in this segment are AT&T, Dell, Deutsche Telekom, Henkel and Accenture.

“80 per cent of the services provided by the centres in Slovakia have to do with finance, IT and customer relationships. If you look at the map of surrounding countries, customer or business development and IT stand out in all those other countries, but finance not as much as it does in Slovakia,” said Peter Rusiňák, AmCham Senior Policy Manager & AmCham BSCF Coordinator.

The idea that these companies only serve as call centres often persists. That was true of them in the nineties. Today, they solve much more sophisticated tasks.

“As this sector employs about 40,000 people, we actually have 40,000 ambassadors who tell their relatives and friends what these centres actually do – and that this is far more than just calling customers,” said Ivan Tomko, vice-chair of the BSCF.

Trade

Lidl worked its way into the first position among retail chains for the first time in 2021's edition of the ranking, as it surpassed Tesco in sales for 2020 by almost €120 million. Last year, the difference was already more than €250 million. Billa has the lead in the number of stores. In the annual report, it lists 165 stores.

The ranking of the largest shopping malls changed this year. The Eurovea shopping mall with 350 stores, is larger than the former leader, Nivy, which has 250. Avion continues to have the largest total area among shopping malls. You can fit more than 15 football pitches in this 100,100 m² area. Almost half is taken up by the Ikea department store.

A strong representation of the German VW group can be seen among the companies active in the sale and import of cars. Based on revenues, the largest company in this segment was Porsche Slovakia. The firm imports brands such as Porsche, Audi, Seat and VW. Škoda Auto Slovakia finished second and Mercedes-Benz took third place.

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 the number of employees.

While Slovenská Sporiteľňa had 200 branches in 2022, the number decreased to 186 in 2022.

Most of the 10 largest banks are owned by foreign corporations in Austria, Belgium and Italy. Slovaks own Poštová Banka, Prima Banka and, partially, J&T Banka.

Among insurance companies, the top three rankings are taken by Allianz, Kooperatíva and NN. Uniqua, which acquired the Axa insurance company, strengthening its fourth position on the market.

There is a noticeable connection between leasing companies and banks, and the ranking of companies is as follows: ČSOB Leasing, Tatra-Leasing, and UniCredit Leasing.

The so-called Big Four comprising PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG had the strongest representation in auditing, accounting, taxation and consulting. The first mentioned is the biggest one and operates a shared service centre in Slovakia. Within its services, EY excels the most in taxation and consulting. KPMG is strong in auditing. The VGD company is catching up on the Big Four thanks to its number of auditors. VGD, a firm that has been operated in Slovakia by the Belgian manager Bart Waterloos since 2004, is the second largest firm in the accounting sector.

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 serving the firms themselves.

In the case of law firms, the top ten is equally represented by international brands and Slovak law firms. The Soukeník - Štrpka firm has been in first place for seven years in a row. We discuss the segment in more detail in a separate series of articles, which, in addition to the largest law firms, also provides rankings for areas such as M&A, Banking & Finance, Real Estate & Development, Intellectual property, Litigation & Arbitration, Labour law, Restructuring & Insolvency, Regulation & Compliance and Competition law.

Human capital

We distinguish between three types of companies in human resources.

The first group are temporary employment agencies that offer flexibility for employers. The largest among them is Index Nosluš. For example, in uncertain times like the shortages of components, companies need people, but do not want to hire them directly, turning to a temporary employment agency instead. When supplies stabilise again, production must be increased, and the original year-round plan catches up.

The ten largest recruitment agencies filled 5,110 positions for companies in 2022. Compared to 2021, this is a 3-percent growth. ManpowerGroup reported the highest number (2,470 placements, most of which were allocated for industry, administrative & support services, logistics).

Finding directors or highly qualified employees requires a more complex approach to recruitment. The last ranking in the field of human resources is dedicated to headhunting.

While in 2021 the 10 largest executive search companies in Slovakia received €4.4 million for their services, in 2022 this rose to €5.5 million. Developments from the beginning of 2023 indicate that the increased demand is continuing.

MenkynaPartners became the new winner for this segment.

The third largest company on the market, Amrop, cited a visible change in managers’ view of their careers.

A relatively significant share of employees are reassessing the scope of their job position. Purposeful leadership becomes an important factor for employees when planning the future. The first indications of the so-called Great Resignation appeared in the USA at the end of 2021.

“Slovakia is not bypassing this trend either, and we are noticing a gradual increase in departures or indicated departures from management positions with the aim of living a more fulfilled life,” said Igor Šulík, a managing partner from Amrop.

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).

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

Real estate

The ranking of companies operating in the construction industry is lead by Strabag, which had the highest sales last year.

The largest residential developer in Slovakia is the Cresco Real Estate group. It has been the largest Slovak residential developer for years. It can thank its activity in the south of Petržalka for this. Here it has been building the Slnečnice multifunctional complex, which in the future will be equal in population to the city’s existing smaller districts.

Cresco completed almost 1,200 flats in the south of Petržalka between 2020 and 2022. Another 761 are under construction. The development is not stopping there, and the group has already been given the green light to expand the district with further phases.

However, the group is no longer solely relying on Petržalka. The Agáty project is also under construction in Dúbravka. This more intimate project is expected to bring 150 housing units to the market. At the same time, the group is preparing construction in other boroughs of the city. A continuation of the Lakeside project is planned in Nové Mesto. In the meantime, a continuation of the River Park project has been awaiting permits for years.

As in 2022, the second largest residential developer on the Slovak market is J&T Real Estate. Between 2020 and 2022, the group completed the Kynek residence project in Nitra, which brought 77 housing units to the market.

However, the developer’s statistics were significantly improved by the Klingerka projects in Bratislava (380 flats and apartments) and the first phase of the Ovocné Sady project. In 2020, it brought 550 flats to the market near Bratislava Airport. The second phase of the project is currently under construction. It will expand its market offer by 477 housing units.

Re/Max became the largest network real estate agency with 280 brokers and 54 branches. The agency usually charges a commission of 3 to 5 per cent for brokering the sale or purchase of real estate. The largest traditional real estate agency is Herrys. It employs 15 brokers and specialises in residential space.

Education and foreign languages

The biggest language school is Jazyková Škola. International House has the highest number of students, 5,000 this school year, and offers the study of seven foreign languages. There is the possibility of studying 19 languages at Berlitz. The school offers Chinese and Arabic, among other languages.

Among universities, Comenius University (UK) has the most students. Second is the Technical University in Košice (TUKE) and the third is the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU).

Year-on-year comparisons of students show that only the three universities, TUKE, STU and University of Prešov, managed to increase the number of students of all universities in the top 10.

Many young Slovaks are still going abroad to study, which is why the government introduced scholarship programs that will try to reverse this trend.

Media, advertising and printing houses

The largest company operating in advertising is the Unimedia media agency, with revenues of €66 million.

Among PR agencies, first place belongs to Seesame, the only one on the market to exceed the €5 million threshold for the sale of its products and services.

By revenue, the largest electronic media firm was Markíza with its seven channels, second place taken by the RTVS public broadcaster, JOJ coming in third. Out of private radio stations, the most successful was the group linked to Rádio Expres.

The strongest publishing house was News and Media Holding with a revenue of €30 million and publications such as Plus Jeden Deň (tabloid daily), Plus 7 Dní (weekly), and Trend (economic weekly). Ranked second, the Petit Press publishing house had a revenue of €24 million. It publishes the SME daily, the MY regional weeklies and Index, which is a monthly business magazine.

Mafra, the publisher of the Hospodárske Noviny business daily, came third out of publishing houses.

Tourism

For the first time, an overview of the largest aquaparks features in the rankings.

The media tend to prefer Tatralandia, but according to our criteria there is Bešeňová at the top.

The largest ski resort in Slovakia is by far the one in Jasná.

It offers four times more ski runs than the second largest ski resort. The resort will increase snowmaking. Snowmaking equipment has been placed on the Slalomák slope. The operation of the Brhliská ski lift was also restored.

Ski pass prices remain at the same level. Skiers will pay less than €60 for a day of skiing during the season. Even though it is clearly the most expensive ski pass from the point of view of the total price, the price per kilometre of slope is the lowest of all the resorts included in the rankings.

Other evaluated categories include the largest hotels and spas. The largest hotel in Bratislava is the Crowne Plaza, with 224 rooms and congress facilities for 898 participants.

Park Inn is the largest accommodation capacity among four-star hotels in Bratislava, with 240 rooms.

This year, the Kúpele Piešťany spa tops the list again. The spa includes the Smrdáky spa facility. As for accommodation, the spa facilities in Piešťany have the largest capacity: 2,277 beds.

Industry and infrastructure

The automotive industry dominates in almost every branch of this segment. Jaguar's factory in Nitra is gradually advancing and becoming one of the largest companies. This year it ranked 15th in the engineering industry. The top three places in this category were taken by Volkswagen, Kia and Stellantis, which manufactures the Peugeot and Citroën brands.

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

In the regulated energy sector, Slovakia still has strong ownership representation.

Northern countries have major representation in the paper and wood processing industries. Denmark tops the ranking for agriculture. Five out of the ten biggest companies in this category are Danish-owned and operate a significant swine breeding business.

Industrial companies that reached revenues in Slovakia of over €2 billion are as follows: Volkswagen (€9.7 billion), Kia (€6.8 billion), Slovnaft (€6.1 billion), Slovenské Elektrárne (€5.1 billion), Slovenský plynárenský priemysel (€4.1 billion) U. S. Steel Košice (€4 billion), and Stellantis (€3.6 billion).

Slovnaft placed first in the top taxpayer category among non-financial companies. In 2022, the company paid €640,2 million in corporate income tax and €39,4 million in contributions paid by employer and employee. The overview of top taxpayers was compiled by BMB Partners TAXAND.

All the top-ranked companies have been published in this article. More comprehensive results with detailed information about the largest companies are available in the Largest in Business yearbook, which you can purchase in our online shop.