The total value of the TOP 30 most valuable companies in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is 45 billion euros
Illar Kaasik, Managing Partner at Prudentia Tallinn
Partner of the Global MA Network
The most valuable company in the Baltics is still the owner of Maxima, Vilniaus Prekyba. With an impressive turnover of € 5.3 billion, operations in six countries, with 2,000 stores and employing 46,000 people, it has been a very successful company founded by Lithuanian investors. In addition to Maxima, we also know it through Barbora, Euro Apotheca and Akropolis brands. Whether the success story will continue, with competition rising in the retail market as Lidl is arriving in Latvia and Estonia, only time will tell.
The most valuable Estonian company is Eesti Energia in 6th place, followed by Latvia's Latvenergo. In total, there are ten Estonian companies in the TOP 30, which is not a bad result considering that Estonia has the smallest population. In addition, the TOP 30 doesn’t include technology companies. If you’d count the capital raised from investors, Bolt would rank 3rd in the top. According to Mergermarket, $ 4.5 trillion worth of business acquisitions have taken place in the first three quarters of 2021 globally, of which 27% have been in the technology sector and 10% in the healthcare sector. Among the companies in the healthcare sector, Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics in Lithuania, which operates in the field of biotechnology development, is represented in the TOP 30 with a value of € 4.3 billion. The company is part of a group headquartered in Massachusetts, USA, that specializes in cancer drug development, food safety and clinical research.
The second largest Latvian company is Latvijas Valsts Meži, which in its activities is similar to the Estonian State Forest Management Centre. Also noteworthy is Mikrotikls, the third largest Latvian company. The company was founded in 1996 to develop systems for routers and wireless Internet service providers. Today, the company operating under the MikroTik brand offers hardware and software for internet connection in several different countries around the world and is a significant global player in its field. By the way, it has a very profitable business model – the company earned € 84 million in EBITDA in 2020 with a turnover of € 360 million!
Seven companies in the TOP 30 are not classifiable by country. As these are companies with business operations in several Baltic countries and foreign ownership, the compilers of the top considered it right not to define the country-specific status of these companies. These include banks, telecom companies and petrol stations.
Nasdaq's corporate governance scores ranked publicly listed companies remarkably high. Ignitis got the best result, getting 100 points or a maximum score. At the same time, Bite Lietuva had the lowest score. Estonia has the most listed companies in the TOP 30, altogether five with Eesti Energia, which illustrates the development and practice of capital markets in different countries. Here again, an opportunity must be pointed out for Estonian businesses – list your company's shares on Nasdaq, raise capital and, using the M&A strategy, achieve rapid growth and realize various synergies to increase the company's value. Today's situation in the capital markets globally and also in Estonia offers good opportunities for this.
