See Top 100: Oil and Gas Companies Lead Southeast Europe Top 100 Ranking (Company Rankings‪)‬

SOFIA (Bulgaria), Sept 23, 2009 -- (InPR) -- Oil and gas firms lead the second annual ranking of the top 100 companies in Southeastern Europe in terms of total revenue in 2008 prepared by SeeNews in a strategic partnership with business consultancy Roland Berger. Companies from the oil and gas sector occupy the first seven positions in the ranking with RomaniaCOs largest oil group, Petrom, on top.The SEE TOP 100 ranking comprises the biggest non-financial companies in the region with entrants from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.In an exclusive partnership for Croatia with Poslovni Dnevnik, SEE TOP 100 will be published in Croatian language on September 29, 2009.A series of articles and special editions of SEE TOP 100 in Bulgarian language will be also available thanks to the cooperation with the Bulgarian business media Dnevnik and Capital.This is the second annual edition of the ranking. It is based on a pool of around 1,000 companies from Southeastern Europe.The leader of the ranking Petrom, majority owned by AustriaCOs OMV, ended 2008 with a total revenue of 4.85 billion euro, up from some 3.6 billion euro in 2007. However, the companyCOs net profit almost halved to around 257 million euro from some 493 million a year earlier. Petrom invested around 1.5 billion euro in 2008.The second biggest company in terms of total revenue in the 2009 ranking is Croatian oil and gas company INA - Industrija Nafte, which topped last yearCOs ranking. It had a total revenue of 3.65 billion euro in 2008, up from 3.28 billion euro a year earlier. Despite the rise in revenue, INA swung to a loss of 142 million euro in 2008, from a net profit of some 164 million euro in 2007. INA, in which HungaryCOs MOL is the largest shareholder, generated losses from its gas business due to Croatian governmentCOs cap on prices.Bulgaria's sole oil refinery Lukoil Neftochim, majority-owned by Russian giant Lukoil, was at No3 position in the 2009 ranking with a total revenue of 3.646 billion euro in 2008, up from 2.96 billion euro in 2007. The refinery closed 2008 with a net loss of some 242 million euro versus a net profit of 53 million euro a year earlier. The refinery has said that its loss was due to the volatility of global oil prices.C[pounds sterling]We chose to measure the fastest growers by these two indicators because they show the different aspects of companiesCO potential to grow,C[yen] Kiril Girginov, Managing Editor of SEE TOP 100, said.SEE TOP 100 also measures the fastest growers by two indicators - biggest growth in total revenue and in net profit. In terms of total revenue, the leader was SloveniaCOs oil products trader Salbatring International, with an annualised rise of 937% to 610 million euro. RomaniaCOs Electrica led the list of companies showing the fastest growth in net profit that surged to 306 million euro from 271,000 euro in 2007 thanks to one-off revenue from the sale of its unit Electrica Muntenia Sud.C[pounds sterling]The banks were ranked separately to show better their actual size. The total revenue is not a key indicator for their performance so we used the total assets instead,C[yen] Denitsa Koseva, Managing Editor of SEE TOP 100, said.This year SeeNews compiled a separate ranking of the TOP 50 largest banks in terms of total assets in Southeastern Europe in 2008.SloveniaCOs largest bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), led the TOP 50 Banks ranking with total assets of 18.9 billion euro at the end of 2008. NLB has units in 16 European countries, including seven in the SEE region.Romania's largest lender, Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), ranked second with 17.3 billion euro in total assets. BCR also was the bank with the highest net profit in the SEE region in 2008, 510.8 million euro.The Romanian unit of French banking group Societe Generale, BRD, came third with 12.8 billion euro in total assets among the top 50 banks in SEE. It was also the second