SLOVENIA
Sava Re first quarter net profit halves to EUR 4.6m y/y
Net profit at insurance group Sava Re halved to EUR 4.6m and pre-tax profit dropped by 42% to EUR 6.6m in January-March compared to the same period last year. The group collected EUR 167m in gross premiums, a yearly increase of 4.4%, show unaudited results released on Thursday.
Source: STA
Slovenia climbs six more spots in IMD competitiveness rankings
Slovenia has gained another six places to rank 37th on the latest World Competitiveness Scoreboard. It climbed by as many as 18 spots to 29th in the economic performance category, while it advanced or at least preserved its ranking in all the remaining main segments.
Source: STA
Italian insurer Generali buys Adriatic Slovenica for EUR 245m
Generali CEE, an affiliate of the world's third biggest insurer, Italy's Generali Group, signed a sales agreement on Wednesday to acquire Adriatic Slovenica from financial group KD Group for 245 million euro.
Source: STA
SBI TOP gains ground in mixed trading
The SBI Top Index on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange gained 0.43% to 900.61 points on Wednesday. Drug maker Krka, which added 1.03% to EUR 59, was the busiest item, accounting for EUR 2.6m of the EUR 3.5m in total daily turnover.
Source: STA
Microsoft CEE Europe vice-president sees potential in Slovenia
Philippe Rogge, Microsoft's vice president for Central and Eastern Europe, said Slovenia had potential to become a success story in digital transformation as he addressed the Microsoft NT conference on Wednesday.
Source: STA
INTERNATIONAL MARKETS
Stocks reverse losses, finish up after Fed minutes show willingness to let inflation run; European markets close lower amid Italian government uncertainty, trade jitters
Stocks closed slightly higher Wednesday — paring earlier losses — after the Federal Reserve said it would be comfortable letting inflation temporarily run above its inflation target. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.21%, S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent, while Nasdaq composite added 0.6 percent.
Shares of industrial conglomerate General Electric fell 7.2 percent Wednesday — its worst one-day performance since 2009— after chief executive John Flannery said he expects no profit growth this year in its already stagnant power business.
Shares of Minneapolis-based Target sank more than 5.5 percent on Wednesday after it reported first-quarter earnings that missed analysts' expectations on both the top and bottom lines.
European stocks closed lower Wednesday, amid Italian government uncertainty and souring market sentiment over ongoing trade talks between the world's two biggest economies. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 1.1 percent, with all sectors and major bourses in negative territory.
Britain's Marks & Spencer surged towards the top of the index after it reported its latest figures on Wednesday. The 134-year-old company posted a second straight decline in annual profit and said it urgently had to modernize in order to not to risk fading away. Nonetheless, its shares rose over 5 percent as results were largely in line with expectations.
Source: CNBC, Ilirika
SERBIA
Brnabic announces tender for strategic partner for RTB
Serbian President Ana Brnabic stated yesterday that a tender for the strategic partner for RTB would open in June and that a new mine would open in Bor at the beginning the same month. As she said, if the tender is successful, it might have an impact of at least one percentage point on the growth and the employment.
Source: Ekapija
Serbian banks' NPL ratio falls to 9.2% at end-March
The ratio of non-performing loans (NPLs) in Serbia's banking sector dropped to 9.2% at the end of March from 11.1% in November 2017, the country's central bank governor, Jorgovanka Tabakovic, has said Since the start of the year, lending growth has accelerated, to 7.5% year-on-year in March, sustained by the effects of past monetary policy easing, growing economic activity and labour market recovery. Coupled with the activities on the resolution of NPLs, this led to the continued reduction of the NPL ratio to 9.2% in March, Tabakovic said during the presentation of the central bank's May inflation report.
Source: SeeNews
Western Balkans Transport Community launched – Nis-Pristina highway among priorities
Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Construction Zorana Mihajlovic says that the Western Balkans Transport Community, headquartered in Belgrade, has already started operating. She noted that the construction of the Nis-Merdare-Pristina highway would be one of the priority projects. Mihajlovic told the press that the Community had started operating with the first ministerial meeting in Brussels and the board meeting this February in Belgrade and added that the director and members of the standing secretariat would be appointed soon.
Source: Ekapija
