In the past year, Far East readers not only feared a crisis that showed no signs of abating, but were also interested in haute cuisine, monitored the fate of their pension savings and how a large store chain optimized personnel costs. DV together with you remember which articles received the greatest attention from readers over 12 months.
We are all human and nothing human is alien to us. But the BaltCap manager’s love of gambling, which deprived Estonian pensioners of their savings, did not evoke deep sympathy in us for the losing manager. As a result of his addiction, the pension funds of Estonian banks reduced the value of the BaltCap infrastructure fund by 20%.
During Soviet times, a military unit was located there, and in the building itself there was a bakery. Now a married couple who moved there from St. Petersburg plans to open an upscale restaurant there. “We are focused not only on the residents of Sillamäe, but, naturally, on tourists, on good tourists,” say the entrepreneurs. We wish there were more such optimists!
In September, a Vilnius court began bankruptcy proceedings for the financial technology startup Kevin EU, whose clients included several Estonian online stores. Kevin’s solution. used, for example, in the online clothing store Weekend and the online plumbing store FEB and several small stores. And although, according to the Bank of Lithuania, clients from Estonia make up less than 10% of all kevin clients, this also worried our readers.
The Planet 42 startup brought Estonian investors a lot of grief, and the new leadership of African businesses tried to get rid of the Estonians altogether. Having headed the startup’s board as an unofficial representative of large investors, Africa’s largest bank Standard Bank and the American fund ARS Holdings, Andrew Rolfe managed to survive from the business of its founding fathers.
Changes in tax legislation sometimes lead to curious situations: for example, a company that filed a return was quite surprised when, in the electronic system of the Tax Department, the taxable amount of approximately 76,500 euros turned into an amount of over half a million. It’s a small thing, but unpleasant.
The Finnish carrier managed to snatch up a tasty morsel in Estonia – transporting giant parts of wind turbines for the Sopi-Tootsi park owned by Enefit Green. European rules protecting local carriers should prevent such cases, but for some reason they have not worked. Indeed, why do we need to protect our entrepreneurs?..
Swedbank analysts Tarmo Tanilas and Meelis Maasik gave investors a good scare at the Äripäev investment festival. They cited statistics from the last hundred years that show that when the economy and markets were in the same state as they are now, there would soon be an economic downturn and a stock market crash. The collapse has not yet come, but everyone, just in case, tensed up.
Children, don’t go for a walk in Spain, warned Indrek Stahl, who sold his company Bastion about ten years ago and has owned real estate in this southern country for more than 20 years. And he had reasons for this.
At a meeting that the Far East held in Narva with the help of IVEK as part of Entrepreneurship Week, regional entrepreneurs spoke emotionally about their troubles and aspirations. The conference brought together more than 50 business people from Ida-Viru County: in addition to top managers and business owners, local activists of non-profit associations and journalists joined the meeting. And they were not silent.
In difficult times for the competitive grocery business, one of the largest store chains, Maxima, began from a position of strength to reduce the salaries of its employees, while trying to avoid layoffs. The way in which the network’s management did this aroused not only the greatest interest among Far Eastern readers this year, but also sincere indignation. The editors of the Far East hope that next year every entrepreneur will remember that the most important thing in business is people. Even if for some it remains only a loud declaration.
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The first place in the TOP energy companies was taken by the subsidiary of Eesti Energia – Elektrilevi OÜ, for which last year was a year of big changes.
At the very top of the ranking of successful Estonian companies are banks, and only banks that took the first six places. Their pre-tax profits account for a third of the total profits of the 1,000 companies on the list.
Added rating of 100 most successful construction companies
Although the construction sector is unlikely to achieve results comparable to previous years in the near future, and the mood in the industry remains worrying, there is faith that companies will cope in the new conditions.
Today it seems unthinkable to operate and work in a country where there is no unemployment insurance and a corresponding institution. However, just a few decades ago, when we began to build Estonia’s social system, many people doubted its necessity. However, the creators of insurance were convinced that it was really important.
Source: www.dv.ee
