CIAK Group has completed the acquisition of the Slovenian company Potokar, as announced on the Zagreb Stock Exchange. Potokar is a company based in Ljubljana and one of the firms in the independent aftermarket segment (so-called “IAM”) in the Slovenian market, with revenue exceeding seven million euros across 18 locations spread throughout Slovenia, offering over 40,000 items.
Potokar is one of the pioneers of the independent aftermarket in Slovenia, a family-owned company that has always focused on long-term business development. – The strong name Potokar and the key values of the company will continue to be nurtured by the local team led by Peter Potokar as CEO, with even greater strength and focus on expanding the market offerings in Slovenia thanks to the support of CIAK Group – the statement reads.
Furthermore, they emphasize that considering the core activities of CIAK Group, the acquisition of Potokar is one of the logical steps for further strengthening and growth of CIAK Group’s portfolio. As a family company, Potokar is very similar to CIAK Auto in both business culture and expertise, and it is expected that the synergies between these two companies will be fully utilized, leading to even better results in the coming years.
With this transaction, CIAK Group continues to be one of the leading companies in the independent aftermarket segment in the Adria region, with a strong presence in the distribution of spare parts for personal vehicles in Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and now Slovenia, as stated in their announcement.
Several acquisitions already
CIAK Group, which is majority-owned by the Leko family, has not made its first acquisition since going public on the Zagreb Stock Exchange in October 2020 after an IPO. In March 2021, they first acquired Next Auto from Podgorica, as well as Zagreb’s Trgometal, which deals with the sale of spare parts for commercial and personal vehicles. The acquisition of Auto Milovanović was their third acquisition in 2021, expanding from the Montenegrin market to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and with the latest acquisition, they have entered the Slovenian market. The value of none of the transactions has been disclosed.
Additionally, this distributor of auto parts acquired the local operations of the German company Stahlgruber , specialized in the distribution of tools and service equipment in Croatia, along with the entire local team, in January last year.
It is worth noting that CIAK Group was listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange in 2020 after an IPO in which investors paid 222 million kuna for 6.34 million shares. This includes all four mandatory pension funds as the largest investors, as well as voluntary pension funds, investment funds, insurance companies, and others. According to SKDD data, Ivan Leko holds a 50.59 percent ownership stake, while Ljilja Leko holds 16.10 percent. Pension funds hold about 22 percent of CIAK Group’s shares.
2021: A historically best year
In the latest annual consolidated financial report for 2021 published on the ZSE, it states that this year was the most successful in the company’s history. The acquisition of six companies in five countries marked a very important step in the consolidation of the regional market. This further strengthened CIAK Group’s position in the regional market and secured the foundations for the next cycle of business development for the Group.
Consolidated revenues in 2021 grew by over 40 percent to 183.3 million euros (1.3 billion kuna), while EBITDA increased by 77 percent to 18.8 million euros (142 million kuna).
The number of employees in 2021 increased by 735 or 58 percent to over two thousand employees in six countries. The net profit at the consolidated level amounts to 9.3 million euros (70.1 million kuna), which is 163 percent higher compared to 2020.
