Promet Group Sees Profits Soar

Promet Group, co-owner of Tatra Trucks and one of the largest family companies in the Czech Republic, improved its gross operating profit (EBITDA) last year, despite the pandemic and lower sales. The most monitored indicator of company performance in the group increased by more than a fifth from 412 million to half a billion crowns.

According to Promet Group, higher profits stem from better corporate governance and the fact that we managed to ensure continuous production of key companies in the automotive sector. “Despite the pandemic, Tatra Trucks was one of the few to stop production in 2020 and managed to meet production plans and customer commitments by producing 1,181 vehicles,” the annual report said. Another company from the holding, the manufacturer of semi-trailers and trailers Stecomtra, did not have to stop production either.

Not all the effects of the pandemic have been eliminated. The shutdowns of most engineering companies have resulted in lower demand for raw materials, which are processed and sold by the metallurgical division of Promet. This was also the main reason why last year’s revenues fell by fifteen percent to 6.6 billion crowns. 

Despite the problems associated with the coronary crisis, Promet wants to increase its profit this year as well. “Before the beginning of the year, we conservatively estimated that EBITDA would grow by about ten percent. So far, everything indicates that we will succeed in fulfilling the plan, “said Denisa Materová, marketing manager of Promet Group, daughter of the group’s owner René Matera. 

Compared to last year, according to her, the engineering division is doing well, drawing on newly launched contracts suspended by the pandemic. Metallurgy, on the other hand, is entering an increasingly complicated situation due to high input prices. “In the area of ​​operating costs, this is the biggest turbulence in thirty years of our business,” said Materová.

Forbes magazine ranked the Promet group in the fifth position of this year’s ranking of the largest family companies in the Czech Republic. At the head of the engineering group, Matera has a long-term cooperation with the industrialist Jaroslav Strnad, the founder of the Czechoslovak Group, which holds a majority in Tatrovka. Now he is planning to expand to Croatia, where both businessmen are trying to control the debt-laden engineering company Đuro Đaković.

In addition to Tatra Trucks and Stecomtra, the Promet Group also includes Tawesco, which supplies pressed and welded parts for car manufacturers, and Kofing, a manufacturer of steel structures.