‘Breakthrough period’ for Matador

“Matador Group has completed another successful year,” said company spokesperson, Dušan Koblišek in a statement about its 2004 activities.

Describing Matador’s acquisitions and its move into the automotive supply segment as “a breakthrough period in the history of our company,” he went onto explain that the group’s initial consolidated results recorded a profit before tax of SKK 388 million (£7 million).

Income from operations amounted to SKK 697 million (£12.7 million) and added value per employee to SKK 780, 000 (£14,000).

Matador Group’s sales amounted to SKK 13.4 billion (£244 million). Mr Koblišek expanded upon the results: “We were able to achieve positive results and further growth despite the fact that the Slovak crown was strengthening against EUR and USD throughout the whole year and, being a major exporter, this caused losses to our Group amounting to SKK 115 million, which was reflected in decreased added value. Thanks to operative financial management measures, we eventually reduced this deficit to SKK 40 million.”

The company entered into the automotive supply segment through pressed and welded car body parts (Matador Inalfa a.s.) and the Pneu division’s business systems development (Obnova Brno a.s.). It claims that the results of these companies will not be fully reflected in the group’s results until this year.

“Our growth was dynamic and we were able to cope successfully with the threats and challenges posed by life and the competition,” continued Mr Koblišek. “But we should not content ourselves with positive statements only. If we take a look at some of our competitors, we can see that they also recorded growth in some economic parameters and in some cases their growth curves were steeper than ours.”