STA, 10 August 2020 - Pivovarna Laško Union, Slovenia's largest brewery, last year generated EUR 156.5 million in net sales revenue, up 2.2% year-on-year, on the back of higher sales in the domestic market. Net profit was meanwhile up by 20% to EUR 24.4 million, shows the annual report published on Monday.

The share of net sales revenue generated in foreign markets in total net sales revenue was 26%, while compared to 2018, the volume sales of beer in the Slovenian market were up by half a percent.

Pivovarna Laško Union's sales in foreign markets last year were up by 4.8% year-on-year, with the growth attributed to higher sales to companies in the Heineken Group, which has been the owner of the Slovenian brewery since 2016.

Director general Zooullis Mina says in the report that the coronavirus epidemic has significantly impacted the company's operations.

The closure of bars, restaurants, hotels and other establishments was followed by an almost 100% drop in sales in the hotel, restaurant and catering industries.

On the other hand, the company, which at the end of 2019 employed 585 workers, recorded no significant drop in sales to shops.

STA, 7 August 2020 - Preliminary data by the Surveying and Mapping Authority indicate about a 40% drop in both the number of deals and turnover in real estate in the first half of 2020. Prices of used flats meanwhile continued to grow, by 3% compared to the second half of 2019, taking the average square metre price in the country above EUR 1,900 for the first time.

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The data, released on Friday, show 10,800 transactions were registered in the first six months in a total value of EUR 770 million. This is a 40% drop for both figures compared on the second half of 2019 and a 40% and 45% decline respectively year-on-year.

The Surveying and Mapping Authority said that in the face of an almost complete market freeze during the lockdown, it decided to publish the preliminary data even though a fair part of deals for the first six months had not yet been registered and processed for proper market analysis. Final data will be released in October.

The body estimates that the actual year-on-year decline in the number of deals and in turnover will be between 35% and 40%. It pointed out that 2019 had seen record figures, mostly due to an unusually high number of deals involving commercial real estate.

As for the continuing rise in the prices of used flats - by 3% on the second half of 2019 and by 7% year-on-year - the Surveying and Mapping Authority noted a similar phenomenon had been seen in 2008.

"In such circumstances it is only the better and fairly expensive flats that continue to get sold and their prices are not decreasing yet due to market inertia," the experts wrote, while pointing out that the market picked up again in May as the epidemic was declared over.

Housing property accounted for almost 70% of total turnover in the first half of the year, up significantly on previous years and even above the 66% recorded in 2015. Between January and 15 July, 5,450 transactions were recorded, a 37% decrease on the second half of 2019 and 36% year-on-year. Turnover for new flats was down by more than 70%.

The number of recorded transactions with land suitable for construction on the other hand fell by only a third compared to the first and second half of 2019, while the number of deals involving farm and forest land decreased by about half.

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STA, 6 August 2020 - The Slovenian subsidiary of the Italian banking group Unicredit saw its consolidated profit plunge to EUR 1 million in the first half of 2020 compared to EUR 16 million in the same period last year.

Pre-tax profit for Unicredit Banka Slovenija and its leasing arm Unicredit Leasing in the first half was meanwhile down by 94.8%, from EUR 20 million to EUR 1 million, shows a report released on Thursday.

Net operating profit decreased 83.6% to EUR 4 million, and operating profit was down from 19 million to 11 million (-41.9%).

While operating revenue was down almost 22% to EUR 33 million, operating costs were down only 5.1% to EUR 21 million, with payroll costs decreasing by 4% to EUR 12 million.

Net interest revenue was up slightly to EUR 23 million, but net fees and commissions were down by 15.3% to EUR 11 million.

The bank saw a 2.2% drop in customers loans in the first half of the year to EUR 1.9 billion, while deposits by customers were up by 3.7% to EUR 2.08 billion.

STA, 5 August 2020 - The registered jobless total in Slovenia stood at 89,397 at the end of July, which is almost unchanged compared to June but due to unemployment growth in April and May the figure is 24.4% above that from July 2019, show data released by the Employment Service on Wednesday.

There were 84,717 persons registered as unemployed on average in the first seven months of the year, 12.2% more than in the same period last year.

The number of newly registered unemployed persons was 8,222 in July, up by 8.2% on June and by 32.4% in the year-on-year comparison.

Among the newly registered, 4,042 had seen their fixed term contracts expire, 490 were first time job seekers, 127 became unemployed because of receivership and 2,221 were long-term redundancies.

The new number of newly registered redundant persons was up by 0.9% compared to June and by 197.3% year on year.

Of the 8,202 persons that were removed from the unemployment registry, jobs were found by 6,487, a 95.7% increase year-on-year.

STA, 2 August 2020 - Sunday shopping will again resemble the pre-corona times as all major retailers in Slovenia are to be open this Sunday. After Mercator, Tuš, Hofer and Eurospin decided to reopen last Sunday, today shoppers can also flock to Spar, Lidl, Leclerc and Jager.

Shopping centres operated by SES will also reopen today, including the Ljubljana Citypark, Aleja and Vič shopping centres, Celje Citycenter and Maribor Europark.

Sunday shopping returns after the government revoked a temporary ban on Sunday shopping last week, a measure that was put in place in the earliest stages of the coronavirus epidemic.

The Sunday shopping ban was reversed effective last Friday, with the decision coming just a week after legislation that would permanently close shops on Sunday stalled in parliament.

The government has withheld its support for the bill, which remains in parliamentary procedure, and suggested retailers and trade unions try and reach an agreement.

STA, 30 July 2020 – The group around the drug maker Krka generated EUR 803.8 million in sales revenue in the first half of the year, a 6% increase compared to the same period in 2019, while gaining EUR 160.3 million in net profit, up 15% year-on-year, the company said in a press release on Thursday.

After the half-year report was discussed by the Krka supervisory board on Wednesday, the management issued a statement today saying that "the Krka Group performed well in the first half of the business year, and reached record results."

"Despite the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, Krka has kept the supply of medicinal products to markets across the world uninterrupted," said CEO Jože Colarič.

The release adds that the Novo Mesto-based group entered the second half of the year in a sound financial condition, and the plan for the entire 2020 is to generate operating income of EUR 1.52 billion, and to increase net profit to EUR 210 million.

"Development of the coronavirus situation, spreading of the disease, its aftermaths, and the related measures of the affected nations are highly uncertain. We are therefore closely monitoring the situation and adapting accordingly in countries where we operate."

STA, 29 July 2020 - Alfi, a Slovenian equity fund, has acquired over 80% of the debt owed by Tuš, one of the largest grocers in Slovenia, which it will convert into equity, the newspaper Delo reports.

The paper, which has obtained confirmation on the acquisition of the last block of claims against Tuš from Alfi, says a framework restructuring agreement to deleverage the grocer is to be signed this week.

About 10% of the claims against the grocer are held by British fund Anacap, Alfi's rival in the acquisition of the debt, and the rest by small creditors.

Delo says the latest transaction will step up Tuš's financial repair as the terms will be set by Alfi. The paper has learnt that the delaveraging is to be swift.

The plan is for the financial creditors to be allowed to convert debt into equity, which would give Alfi an ownership stake of 75% in Tuš, with the Tuš founder, Mirko Tuš, preserving 15-20%.

Another step in Tuš's restructuring is to be selling and then taking out a lease on its properties.

Mirko Tuš last year handed the company's management over to his son Andraž.

At the end of 2019, preventive restructuring was launched for the group, whose main line of business is retail with entertainment, recreation, hospitality and real estate as side lines of.

In 2018 the group fell from third to fourth place among Slovenia's largest grocers.

Since first Tuš shop was opened 30 years ago, the company developed into a group with 100 stores with more than 3,100 employees,  but became heavily indebted during the last financial crisis.

STA, 27 July 2020 - The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted Slovenian companies much more unequally than the latest recession in 2009. While 58% of companies have had negative effects, 17% of them had positive effects, according to a survey carried out by the Slovenian Marketing Association and the pollster Valicon.

In the autumn of 2009, 79% of the companies which participated in the recent survey had reported about negative effects of the global economic crisis in a poll carried out by the Marketing Association at the time.

Back then, positive effects were felt by 6% of the participating companies, the association said, adding that "compared to the 2009 crisis, when companies mostly did not detect positive effects of the economic crisis, a larger asymmetry is noticeable now."

Also implying that the pandemic has not affected all companies equally is the fact that only 41% of the polled companies think that they will be affected by the pandemic equally as other companies in their industry.

"In 2009, 63% of companies assessed that they will be affected to the same extent as other companies in the industry," the association said on Monday.

More than half (56%) of the recently polled companies plan to keep the marketing activity at the same level after the epidemic), 21% plan to scale back their marketing and 24% to boost it.

Almost three-quarters of the companies (71%) intend to keep the funds intended for marketing at the same level in 2021, the association said, noting that during the 2009 crisis, it was marketing budgets that had gotten the most restricted.

Among the planned marketing activities, more investment is expected in the opening of digital sales channels (62%), introducing new business models (50%), apps and web interfaces (47%) and advertising on social media (46%).

Marketing Association president Petra Čadež commented on the survey by saying that despite the negative effects of the pandemic, a positive shift in the strategic understanding of marketing in companies could be detected.

"It could be noticed that some companies have found new opportunities within the given situation and adjusted their strategies," she added.

Matjaž Robinšak of Valicon said that the time was most probably coming when marketing would have to adapt several times. "Constant search for new models and looking for new opportunities will be the key for success," he added.

The Marketing Monitor 2020 survey was carried out in June on a sample of 64 members of the Marketing Association.

STA, 26 July 2020 - One of the Slovenian companies that has benefited from the coronavirus pandemic is Tik Kobarid, a manufacturer of disposable medical devices. Its sales revenue trumped projections by 9% in the first half of the year, which comes on top of continuous growth in recent years.

Tik generated EUR 6.5 million in sales revenue last year, 6% more than the year before and 28% more than five years ago, with exports accounting for 86% of the revenue, shows the company's report for 2019, filed with the AJPES agency for public legal records.

The positive drive continues. "At these 'odd times' we're proud to say our performance in the first half of the year trumped the expectations," the company's CEO Petra Borovinšek said, adding that she expected better-than expected results for the whole year.

Tik Kobarid was founded in 1951 as a manufacturer of sewing machine needles. A few years later, it started making hypodermic needles and by the late 1970s in had begun to expand production to several other disposable medical devices and tools.

The company went through a difficult patch after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, its traditional market. In late 1997 it was acquired by the Cerkno-based company Certa, now Larix Invest, whose majority ownership has since passed to Postojnska Jama, the company owned by Marjan Batagelj which operates the Postojna Cave and several other tourism assets.

Tik has recently launched a new clean room to expand cleanroom production capacity to more than 40% of the output or a total of 1,500 square meters. Also this month, an additional catheter wetting unit has been launched to wrap up a two-year investment cycle in the urology line valued at EUR 2 million.

The company, which employs 159 people, phased out production of non-medical productions completely by March 2019 to focus solely on disposable medical devices. Its clients are mainly medical equipment distributors from Europe, as well as those from Turkey and the Balkans. Catheters represent 76% of the sales revenue.

STA, 25 July 2020 - Kickstarter will be officially launched in Slovenia in September, as so far users which wanted to present themselves on the US-based global crowdfunding platform had to do it through a company registered abroad.

The platform established in 2009 provides entrepreneurs, artists and organisations the opportunity to present their products, which may be a prototype, and then collect contributions to finance the launch of production.

According to the Slovenia Crowdfunding Meetup community, the Slovenian partner of Kickstarter, more than EUR 4.32 billion has been collected through the platform, and around 185,000 projects have reached the target amount of funding.

Among the projects presented until the end of last year, there were 219 Slovenian projects, with their creators collecting a total of EUR 6.8 million.

In order to present their projects, they needed a company registered in the US or in a country to where Kickstarter later expanded.

In practice, the problem was usually solved by Slovenian authors using a foreign partner, explained Slovenia Crowdfunding Meetup, which has been hosting events and assisting authors who want to present themselves on the platform since 2017.

The main obstacle for the entry of Kickstarter to Slovenia was the Stripe payment system, which has been available in Slovenia since last September.

The most successful Slovenian campaign on the platform so far is the electric bicycle Flykly, which helped its creators collect around US$700,000.