For today, we decided to present you with a brief analysis of cash per share of Croatian companies.

In April, most Croatian companies published their Q1 results, while the market observed a slight recovery compared to a sharp decrease seen in March. As a result, we decided to revisit (update) our cash per share analysis, with Q1 figures in order to see the strength of the balance sheet and how liquid selected Croatian companies are. This figure as the percentage of a company’s share price can give us more insight on the company’s strength on returning the money to shareholders (either through dividends or buybacks), paying down debt etc.

It is important to note that looking at solely cash per share of a company could lead to misleading conclusions if we did not also take into consideration the company’s indebtedness. To see the Q1 indebtedness of Croatian companies click here.

Cash per Share of Croatian Blue Chips (HRK)

A high level of cash per share indicates a solid performance of the company, reinsuring the shareholders that the company is operating with “enough room” to cover for any potential difficulties and that the company has adequate capital.

Cash per Share as a Percentage of the Current Share Price

As visible in the graph, of the selected companies, Končar operates with the highest cash per share as a percentage of their current share price of 65.3%, while their cash per share amounts to HRK 296.5. Note that the company  witnessed a high share price decreases YTD of 28.5%, closing yesterday’s trading session at HRK 454 per share. Arena Hospitality Group comes next, whose cash per share accounts for 52.5% of the current share price. On the flip side, Maistra’s cash per share amounts to HRK 3.7, which accounts for 1.7% of the company’s share price.

Cash Position of Croatian Blue Chips (HRK m)*

 *Cash and short term financial assets (from FY 2019 consolidated reports)

The NLB Group is in discussions with MIGA to potentially obtain guarantees to insure against the risk of expropriation of mandatory reserves held by the Group. The transactions which are scheduled to be concluded later this year could reduce the RWA of NLB on consolidated level by around EUR 300m.

NLB Group published an announcement on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange stating that with the aim of capital optimization on a consolidated basis, it is in discussions with Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a part of the World Bank Group, to potentially obtain guarantees to insure against the risk of expropriation of mandatory reserves held by NLB Group banking members with their local central banks.

The guarantee agreements are envisaged to be concluded with MIGA for each individual banking member of the NLB Group. The transactions which are scheduled to be concluded later this year could reduce the risk weighted assets of NLB on consolidated level by around EUR 300m.

To put things into a perspective, this amounts to 3.3% of the Groups 2019 consolidated risk weighted assets.

Croatia has fully opened its boarders to all foreign tourist after more than a month of lockdown.

On Monday, Croatia observed further relaxation of measures regarding Covid-19 restrictions, with many companies opening back for business.  Besides that, Croatia has fully opened its boarders to all foreign tourist after more than a month of lockdown. It is worth noting that the foreigners arriving in Croatia will not need to go through a period of self-isolation upon the arrival.

Gari Capelli, Croatia’s tourism minister stated that Croatia is open for tourism as tourists can come to hotels, camps, private accommodation, while people can also enjoy various activities like eating in restaurants, renting a boat,  etc.

According to Croatian media, in the first 24 hours since the reopening of the boarders, 667 foreign citizens have arrived to Croatia, most coming from Slovenia (285).

As a reminder, due to the lockdown, Croatia has witnessed extremely low figures when it comes to foreign arrivals in April 2020. To put things into perspective, in April Croatia observed 2,349 arrivals compared to 2.87m in the same month last year.

You can find an extensive report on Croatian tourism sector in regards to dealing with the Coronavirus here.