Dynamic economic intelligence report #11: November 2023 Analysis of multinational expansion

Throughout the period of recovery from the pandemic crisis, the business fabric of Alicante has shown a positive trend, increasing the number of companies at a growth rate of 2% for the year 2022 as a whole. Alicante is one of the main provinces in terms of company creation, both in terms of gross number and year-on-year growth. These data reflect the potential muscle of the province’s economic and business fabric, showing its entrepreneurial character and business confidence throughout 2022 and the expired quarters of 2023, according to data from the Chamber of Commerce.

INECA (Institute of Economic Studies of the Province of Alicante) points out that the economy of the province is still in a phase of recovery and growth which is ideal for its productive sector to improve its business dimension. They support this affirmation in the positive indicators in the matter of unemployment and affiliation, with perspectives of improvement throughout the year with the foreseeable lowering of the inflationary process. However, they point out that despite the improvement and the increase in the size of the business network in Alicante, its average size (8.6 workers in 2023 compared to 8.5 in 2022) is still lower than the national average (11.4). Very negative data compared to large neighboring cities such as Murcia (11.3) or Valencia (11.1).

According to the latest data available in the INE (year 2022), Alicante only has 94 (90 were in 2021) with more than 250 employees (the standard consideration for large companies according to the number of employees). Of these, 80 have between 250 and 999 employees (compared to 75 the previous year), 11 have between 1000 and 4999 employees (12 were in 2021) and only 3 (one more than in 2021) have more than 5000 employees. Thus, the figure of companies with no employees stands out above all, accounting for around 55% of the total business fabric of Alicante and the figure of SMEs, which accounts for around 45% of the total. The rest, a tiny 0.07%, would be large companies and multinationals.

If we compare this data with two of its main competitors, Malaga and Valencia, Alicante would be the second with the largest number of companies. In terms of company size, Malaga also has 94 large companies, while Valencia has 238. It is worth mentioning that Valencia practically doubles the number of companies in Alicante in any stratum with 250 or more employees. In terms of relevance over the total number of companies, the figure of the company without employees in Valencia (55.2%) is lower than in Alicante (56.04%), while in Malaga it is more important (57.97%). On the side of SMEs, it is in Valencia where they are most important (44.59%), ahead of Alicante (43.9%) and Malaga (41.95%). As for the large groups or companies in these three provinces, Valencia is the most outstanding, since they account for 0.1277% of the total number of companies, while in Malaga, despite having the same number of companies of this size, they have a slightly greater significance over the total number of companies than in Alicante, 0.063% compared to 0.069%.

Regarding business expectations, the harmonized business confidence index (ICEA) for the Valencian Community increases by 2.5% for the second quarter of 2023 (latest available data), compared to the previous quarter. According to the report of the Valencian Institute of Statistics (IVE) this is the first positive data obtained since March 2022, when the fall began. Despite the improvement in Valencian expectations, the business confidence of the businessman of the Comunitat is still below the national average (2.7%), which is experiencing its highest period of growth. However, Alicante also shows a good performance in the ICEA, surely motivated by the good role and performance in the economic recovery, the growth in the number of companies and in job creation in the province, obtaining the highest increase (4.7%) of the Valencian Community, above Valencia (1.3%) and Castellón (1.%).

Large groups operating in Alicante

Looking at the large multinationals or large dominant companies in the Alicante market, the top 102 of companies by turnover accounts for almost 3,000 million euros of the GDP of the province and more than 10,000 jobs in 2022. As the outstanding leader is Bitcoinforme with more than 850 million euros, followed by the mega sports center Sprinter, with around 520 million euros, followed by Baleària with more than 340 million, Aldi with 312 million, Grupo Soledad with 303, Grupo Fernández with 295, Masymas with 285 million (the biggest drop compared to the previous year), Euro Pool System with 211 million, Nexiapharma with 177 million and Banco Sabadell Mediación with 165 million euros.

In employment, the ranking would be as follows: 1st place Sprinter (with 4,105 employees); 2nd Masymas (2,690); 3rd Aldi (1,008); 4th Baleària (866); 5th Soledad Group (697); 6th Fernández Group (549); 7th Euro Pool System (238); 8th Bitcoinforme (78); 9th Nexiapharma (46); and 10th Banco Sabadell Mediación.

On the EBITDA side, a financial indicator that shows the gross operating profit before deducting financial expenses, the top 5 shows gross results above 10 million euros. Here, Balèria does hold the number 1 position with 85.5 million euros, followed by Sprinter (55.7 million), Grupo Soledad (almost 17 million), Masymas (almost 15 million), Banco Sabadell Mediación (almost 12 million), Euro Pool System (9 million), Grupo Fernández (8.7 million), Aldi (8.4 million), Bitconinforme (5.1 million) and Nexiapharma (2.55 million).

On the side of the results obtained for the year 2022, Baleària leads with 45.4 million euros, followed by Sprinter with 34.11 million euros, the Soledad Group with just over 10 million, Banco Sabadell Mediación exceeding 8.4 million, Euro Pool System with 5.5 million, the Fernández Group with almost 4.5 million euros, Masymas with 4.2 million, Bitcoinforme with 3.8 million, Nexiapharma with almost 1.8 million euros and Aldi with just 1.2 million.

By sectors, the commercial activity stands out above all, be it sports fashion, footwear and accessories (Sprinter) or the food branch with the preparation and distribution of food, beverages and drugstores (Aldi, Masymas, Grupo Fernández). Maritime transport of tourists (Baleària), banking and insurance (both Banco Sabadell and its affiliated operator in Alicante), machinery and equipment rental (Euro Pool System), cryptocurrency and blockchain service (Bitcoinforme) or automobile (Soledad Group).

In terms of location, only 4 of the 10 are located in the city of Alicante (Nexiapharma, Euro Pool System, Sprinter and Banco Sabadell), which together with Elche (Bitconinforme and Grupo Soledad) are the only ones with more than one company represented in the ranking. The rest are located in Cox (Grupo Fernández), in Pedreguer (Masymas), in San Isidro (Aldi) and in Denia (Baleària).

Table 1. IBEX 35 companies by location of their headquarters.

Table 2. IBEX 35 companies by sector of activity.

Table 3. Turnover, sector of activity and location of the top 15 companies with the highest turnover in Spain.

Table 7. Companies in Alicante, Valencia and Malaga by number of employees, 2020-21.

Table 8. Top 10 ranking of companies in Alicante by turnover, results and EBITDA in €, 2021-22.

Table 9. Employees, sector of activity and location of the top 10 companies with the highest turnover in the province of Alicante.

Sources consulted: