Today we decided to bring you an overview of the H1 2022 EBITDA and profit margins of Slovenian companies.
Over the course of August, Slovenian companies have posted their updated H1 2022 results. As a result, we decided to bring you an updated EBITDA and profit margin analysis. One thing that is important to point out is that comparing the margins across the selected companies is not necessarily the best way to do the comparison, considering that many companies operate in different industries. Since both EBITDA and profit margins reflect to a large extent the industry a certain company operates in, it is more advisable to use the peer average or median.
Even so, it is worth seeing which Slovenian companies are more profitable and therefore have a better position in managing their prices and services (reducing costs, increasing prices of goods/services) thus increasing these margins – and which are not. It should also be noted that financials (Triglav, Sava Re, and NLB) were excluded from these comparisons.
H1 2022 EBITDA margin of Selected Slovenian Companies (%)
Out of the four observed companies, Luka Koper recorded the highest H1 2022 EBITDA margin at 40.7%. If we were to look at H1 2022 vs. H1 2021, the margin increased by 12.5 p.p. YoY. This growth is mostly due to an increase in revenues of 35% YoY, which is even 29% more compared to what the Group planned for the half of the year. Next up, we have Cinkarna Celje, which recorded an EBITDA margin of 32.6%. When looking at H1 2022 vs. H1 2021, the company experienced a 5.8 p.p. increase YoY. The main reason for the higher margin is the strong increase in the company’s sales (+35% YoY). Sales grew on the back of higher spot prices of the titanium dioxide segment, which were driven by a favorable market situation, further boosted by the lack of supply in the EU market, with still-growing demand – resulting in high prices. Following these two, we have Krka with an EBITDA margin of 22.4%, decreasing by 9.1 p.p. YoY. Overall, the EBITDA margin fell as Krka’s COGS increased more than its top line did. COGS mainly increased due to increasing of inventory in Russia at much higher cots due to inflation. Lastly, we have Petrol, which had an EBITDA margin of 1.2%, which is mostly in line with the specificity of the industry the company operates in. On a YoY level, Petrol reported a significant decrease in EBITDA margin of 4.4 p.p., due to a couple of effects. Petrol was affected by the fuel price regulation imposed by governments on all their markets. In some of their periods margins were fixed and in certain periods prices were capped on its main markets of Croatia and Slovenia. The government’s freeze on the retail prices of petroleum derivatives caused an EBITDA loss of EUR 108.9m in Slovenia and EUR 14.5m in Croatia. In total, it is EUR 123.4m loss on EBITDA in the first half of this year.
H1 2022 Profit margin of Selected Slovenian Companies (%)
Looking into the H1 2022 profit margins, we can see that Krka leads the way with 27.5%. The company’s bottom line and consequently, profit margin, was significantly boosted by a net financial result of EUR 137.8m, mainly from the unrealized rouble FX gains of EUR 123m. As a result, Krka noted an increase in H1 net profit of c.60% YoY. Krka is followed by Luka Koper with a 26.7% net profit margin, which increased by 13.3 p.p. YoY. This increase in profit margin is driven by strong H1 results driven by sales growth of 35% YoY with the bottom line amounting to EUR 41.1 (+169% YoY). Cinkarna Celje follows with a 22.4% profit margin, which increased by 6.5 p.p. YoY. Solid bottom line results are also driven by strong sales growth (+35 YoY), just like on the EBITDA level. Last to follow is Petrol with a net profit margin of -0.1% (-2.7 p.p. YoY), which is a direct result of the fuel price regulation imposed by the governments on all of their markets.