For the seventeenth year in a row, Prudentia and NASDAQ Riga publish TOP 101 of Latvia’s most valuable companies. Despite partial restrictions related to the protracted Covid-19 pandemic and the started from the middle of 2021 decline in purchasing power, TOP101 2022 value has grown by 12%, or 2.7 billion EUR, comparing it to previous year’s TOP. In part, this has been motivated by some industry's abnormal trading multiples for European comparables over the past couple of years, as well as improved results driven by efficiency gains, substantial rise of price or demand for goods or services.
This year, the highest concentration of companies that make up the TOP101 of 2022 year is visible in the "Manufacturing industry: industrial goods" industry, which increased its share by 3.7 percentage points. This can be explained by the increase in the profitability of wood industry companies due to the price increase of wood and its derivatives, as a result of which the companies in this sector stand out with a rapid increase in their valuations. Other industries show even greater diversification than in 2021, which is better represented by the “Other 10 Industries” segment, adding 3.1 percentage points compared to 2021 and accounting for 28.7% of the entire 2022 TOP101.
On the other hand, the decrease in values can be seen in six industries: Construction, Other commercial services, Extraction of natural resources, Consumer services, and Trade: industrial and consumer goods. The fastest growth was shown by the Financial Services industry, which is justified by the consolidation of Swedbank’s Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian operations in Latvia under Swedbank Baltics, AS, which appeared on the Latvian TOP101 for the first time.
In TOP101 of 2022 year, 54.5% of companies are classified as foreign capital companies. The biggest trend of change can be seen in the ratio between State and Local capital private companies - TOP101 of 2021 had by 1.5 percentage points more State capital companies, while this year's TOP101 has more Local capital private companies by 19.8 percentage points.
Current TOP101 consists of 16 newcomers with a total value of 4,631.2 million EUR, of which 68% is contributed by the leader of 2022 year’s TOP101 - Swedbank Baltics, AS. Despite the overall increase in TOP101 value, the inclusion threshold was reduced by 7.27 million EUR, or -9.98%, with a minimum company value of 65.61 million EUR. This trend reflects the unfavorable situation both in the Latvian economy and in the wider European market.