Petrol Announces Second Offer for Crobenz

Petrol will invest approximately 75 million euros in the Croatian market – emphasized Aleksander Svetelšek, CEO of the Petrol Group, which for the first time presented its operations in Croatia on the domestic and regional market with a special focus on the next five years.

Svetelšek highlighted that they will not enter new activities, apart from the existing ones, nor will they enter new countries, but they plan to allocate as much as 428 million euros for projects from the development strategy that includes Croatia. Of this amount, 54 percent is intended for the oil trading business in Southeast Europe. – By 2014, we want to be among the top three oil traders in the countries where we operate and achieve at least 10 percent annual growth – said Svetelšek, reflecting on the financial results of the Group. Thus, Petrol achieved a sales revenue of 2.3 billion euros in 2009, with an operating profit of 50.8 million euros and a net profit of 10.4 million euros. In the first three months of this year, the Group’s net revenue was even six percent higher than planned, amounting to 607.1 million euros, while the net profit in the same period was two percent higher than planned, at nine million euros.

Regarding the Croatian market, Petrol Croatia achieved a sales revenue of 113.2 million euros in 2009, while Euro-Petrol reached 190.9 million euros. As for the business in the first three months of this year, expectations were also exceeded. – Petrol Croatia and Euro-Petrol achieved 71.4 million euros in net sales, which is 20 percent more than in the same period last year and 12 percent more than planned – confirmed Svetelšek, adding that they currently have 75 gas stations in Croatia, but their goal is to reach 100 stations. He revealed that they plan mostly greenfield investments, but acquisitions are not excluded, and they will also make a second offer for Crobenz. The main focus is on retail development with a strong emphasis on quality, and they have also increased the marketing budget. The goal is, says Svetelšek, to increase revenue in Croatia by 50 percent by 2014 and to employ around 300 people. In addition, they have recently completed the acquisition of Jadranplin, a company for the storage, filling, and trading of gas from Drniš, as they want to become a relevant player in the wholesale market of LPG. (Jasmina Trstenjak)