News

By Pablo Repetto. Published in the print edition of Fortuna

Once again, like 16 years ago, we present this new ranking for Fortuna Magazine, which this time reflects an extraordinary situation, a period of great challenges brought about by the pandemic and the quarantine that affected all of humanity. The evaluation of the best companies in this edition has been made during a period in which unprecedented conditions of high uncertainty and high risks were experienced, which once again highlighted the ability of companies to adapt to a complex environment.

Looking ahead, we hope that future conditions will provide a more favorable scenario where the different variants of COVID-19 are being controlled in a way that allows for a strengthening of the capacity of companies to grow and perform more positively. At the local level, the uncertainty and challenges caused by the pandemic are compounded by the difficulties shown by the government in providing a framework to moderate uncertainty. On the contrary, the internal context has been exacerbating business challenges, strongly conditioning the performance of companies in broad sectors and various aspects.

The 2021 edition of the Ranking

Fortuna showed a new deterioration with respect to the average score level of the previous edition (a new setback since in the last two editions the average score had also fallen). This time 46.2 points were reached, a drop of more than 3 points compared to 49.4 in the previous edition, thus marking an average at a minimum. This level, which corresponds to the balances for the year 2020/2021, is accompanied by sector improvements that have improved and others that suffered the consequences of the deterioration imposed by the pandemic.

On this occasion, we have also incorporated new items that point to a more complete analysis of the sectoral characteristics of the Argentine economy. Thus we have two sectors linked to agriculture: Agro Productive and Agro Services. We divide the Food and Beverage sector into two: Food on one side and Beverage on the other. And we continue to evaluate Banks and Insurance outside the Best Ranking with subjective metrics different from the rest of the sectors.

SALES AND PROFITS. Taking as a basis for comparison the first 100 of the ranking of the best companies corresponding to the 2020/2021 balances, we see that net sales reached $2,951,810 million, a figure that implies an increase of 59% with respect to the amount of net sales of the first 100 ranking companies corresponding to the year 2018/2019 ($1,857,420 million). As the previous ranking took into account the 2018/2019 period (being able to deliver balances closed as of 03/31/2019) and this time the ranking corresponds to the 2020/202 period, the inflation of the period (taking the average of the indices of each period covered collection of balances) was 116%. In real terms, this implies a sharp drop in net sales of 26.5% between both periods. This real drop in net sales clearly expresses the negative impact that the pandemic produced on the level of domestic and global consumption, which severely affected the sales volume of companies. Regarding the operating profits of the 100 best companies, they have reached only $117,000 million, well below the almost $305,000 million obtained in the 2018/2019 ranking. The number of companies with operating losses grew significantly. In 2018/2019 they were only 2% of those relieved to be on this occasion 29% of them (being the worst record since we analyzed companies for Fortuna). The registered amount of earnings for all the companies analyzed was so low that when comparing it with the volume of net sales achieved, the Operating Earnings / Sales ratio reached the minimum level of 4 points (compared to 16.4 points in the previous edition ). This implies that for every 100 pesos of net sales, the companies as a whole only obtained 4 pesos of operating income.

The average operating results of the 100 best companies in the ranking of this edition showed an operating profit of $1,301 million compared to $3,047 million in the previous edition.

DEBTS AND LIQUIDITY. For its part, the median ratio of liabilities to operating income of the best companies (taking only those that made a profit) also reflected a significant deterioration. It went from being 4.3 to being 6.4. In other words, the time that operating profits would allow companies to pay off their liabilities, which was 4.3 years, became 6.4 years in this edition (2 more years would require paying off liabilities with operating profits). This data is influenced by the strong deterioration of operating profits since, in the case of the liabilities of companies that obtained operating profits, no nominal increases were seen.

Liquidity remained little changed at a level of 1.3 (up from 1.2 in the previous edition), implying a good correlation between short-term assets and liabilities.

Lastly, the ratio of operating results to equity stood at 0.04, once again exposing the very weak performance of company profits.

SECTORS. The items that showed the best performance (considering the score received by the shortlists of winners), on this occasion of the ranking with which Fortuna rewards the best companies, were Banks, Insurance, Electricity, Food and Agro Services. Well atomized were the first ten places with companies belonging to 9 sectors. There were 2 from the Electricity Generation sector (Pampa and Central Puerto), and from the electrical appliance sector (the winner Newsan), one from the gas sector (Transportadora Gas del Sur), one from the oil sector (Tecpetrol), one from the food sector (Arcor), one from the mass consumption (Impo and Expo de la Patagonia), one from the new Beverage sector (Bodegas Esmeralda), another from the Agro Services sector (Agrometal) and one from the Construction and Construction Supplies sector (Disal).

BIGGER AND BETTER. We continue to reward as the largest the company that has shown the greatest growth in the year instead of rewarding the one that registers the highest sales, since in this way we will be recognizing those who have stood out in the year. To measure the company with the highest growth in net sales, we focus on the 20 companies with the highest annual turnover and compare this year's sales with respect to the previous one, taking as a reference the percentage of variation they have had.

It is very interesting at this level to note that the two companies with the highest annual growth are from the technology sector, something that is surely explained by how the pandemic changed habits, reducing some expenses but increasing those related to technology that allowed us to remain connected in the global village. despite the pandemic and quarantines

The best company of the year was also Newsan, which continued to consolidate its position in the market thanks both to its own brands (Noblex, Atma, Philco, among others) and to the various strategic alliances established with international brands such as Motorola, LG, Whirlpool and Gamma. Newsan achieved the following scores in the indicators reaching 75 points out of 100 in Net Sales, 70 points out of 100 in the EBITDA ratio with respect to Net Assets, 70 points in the Liabilities relationship with respect to EBITDA and 60 points in the Liquidity ratio to achieve a score weighing these ratios of 68.5 out of 100 in this edition of the Fortuna Ranking.

The Ranking:

1 NEWSAN S.A
2 MIRGOR S.A
3 ARCOR S.A.I.C.
4 LEDESMA S.A.
5 LOS GROBO AGROPECUARIA S.A
6 IMPO AND EXPO OF LA PATAGONIA S.A
7 RIO DE LA PLATA MILLS S.A
8 HOLCIM S.A
9 TELECOM S.A.
10 TOYOTA
11 PAMPA ENERGY S.A
12 ALUAR ALUMINUM ARGENTINO S.A
13 LOMA NEGRA S.A
14 TRANSPORTADORA GAS DEL SUR S.A
15 TECPETROL S.A.
16 TRANSPORTADORA DE GAS DEL NORTE S.A.
17 YPF S.A.
18 GENERAL FUEL COMPANY S.A.
19 PAN AMERICAN ENERGY
20 SANCOR HEALTH