Fuel and energy trader Petrol solidified its position as the largest Slovenian company in this year's edition of the TOP300 list. In 2023 sales of the company reached 5.5 billion euros. With close to 7 billion euros of sales the Petrol Group* made it into the last edition of Fortune Europe 500 list as the 7^th largest corporation in Central and Eastern Europe and the 2^nd largest in Southeastern Europe. The bulk of the group's revenues comes from a network of close to 600 gas stations in Slovenia and the Adriatic region, yet the company is preparing itself for the post-carbon future and is investing heavily in wind and solar farms.

Petrol is followed by the electricity companies HSE (rank 3) and Gen I (rank 4) – both are important electricity traders present in most of the European countries. HSE Group also produces 60 percent of the electricity in Slovenia. Third place on the list is taken by Belektron – the revenues of the carbon emission allowances trader reached 3.3 billion euros.

The largest manufacturing company in Slovenia is home appliances and electronic producer Gorenje (rank 5), a key part of the Chinese Hisense Europe. Gorenje is followed by generic drug manufacturer Krka. The group’s sales went up by 5 percent last year to 1.8 billion euros and by another 8 percent in the first half of 2024. Another pharmaceutical company Lek took 7^th place on the list. Yet in July 2023 Lek split into Lek Sandoz and Novartis Slovenija following the spin-off of Sandoz from the Novartis group with 2,895 employees out of 5,902 staying in Lek.

In 2023, ten Slovenian companies posted revenues of over 1 billion euros. The backbone of the Slovenian economy are manufacturing SMEs and that could also be clearly seen from the TOP300 list. Most of the largest Slovenian companies are rather small: 77 companies out of 300 have less than 100 employees. 42 million euros of sales is enough to get to the TOP300 list. In the previous version of the list with 2022 results the figure was slightly higher, 44.5 million euros. 27 companies in the list posted a loss in 2023 – one less than in the previous version of TOP300. Overall, the companies in the list together made 3.4 billion euros of net profits last year and 1.9 billion in 2022. Yet the sales revenues went down: from almost 70 billion in 2022 to 64 billion euros last year. 

To some extent this already reflects the tightening of conditions in the main Slovenian markets, most notably in Germany. This trend is likely to continue in 2024 and 2025. The crisis of Volkswagen and other German car manufacturers directly affects many automotive suppliers on the TOP300 list – it may also bring tougher conditions for many other firms. However, some business leaders explicitly stated that the present crisis of the automotive industry opens new opportunities and provides a chance to expand to new markets and a faster transformation to electric vehicle components. Slovenian manufacturing has made several turnarounds and quick recoveries in the last decades. The flexibility and resilience of Slovenian manufacturing SMEs are in fact one of their main advantages.