March the 2nd, 2023 - The Croatian Atlantic Group is no stranger to success and eye-watering figures when it comes to revenue, and it only expects that trend to continue. Another hope is for yet another record year.

As Marija Brnic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian Atlantic Group (Grupa) ended last year with record revenues, and despite the expected less favourable economic conditions, the company expects to continue this trend this year as well. They expect to be able to mark up record sales totalling around 900 million euros.

According to the company's just published unaudited financial report, the Croatian Atlantic Group concluded 2022 with total revenues of 6.37 billion kuna, (850 million euros) which were 11.8% higher than they were back during the previous year.

Such optimism within the Croatian Atlantic Group is based on estimates that the prices of raw materials, packaging materials and energy sources should not reach record levels from back in 2022, but they still expect significant volatility. Negative pressures, on the other hand, will be alleviated by Croatia's entry into the Eurozone and the Schengen area which took place on the very first say of 2023.

In their unaudited financial report, the Croatian Atlantic Group estimates that purchase prices, regardless of stabilisation measures back at the end of 2022, are significantly above the level from the pre-crisis period, and based on this they expect a lower normalised EBITDA margin this year. They also note that in the first half of 2022, the impact of the increase in the price of raw materials and packaging material was significantly lower compared to the second part of the year, considering that Atlantic acquired a large part of the quantities they had at more favourable prices than the then market prices. That alone would result in a drop in profitability in the first part of 2023, primarily in the first quarter. On the other hand, they expect to see the beginning of the recovery of their profit margins in 2024.

This year, as can be seen from the report, management's focus, in addition to dealing with the problems of inflation and supply chains, will be on the internationalisation of certain brands and the development of the distribution business by strengthening existing and acquiring new principals, and on possible mergers and acquisitions.

The Croatian Atlantic Group closed the last business year with a net profit of almost 196 million kuna, at the same time, revenues grew by 11.8% on an annual basis, while profit was weaker by 43%, and according to the unaudited financial report, EBITDA was reduced by 20.6% compared to 2021, to 575.4 million kuna in total. The biggest impact on the drop in EBITDA was the high costs of raw materials, energy and logistics, the very negative impact of which exceeded sales growth across all Atlantic's business areas.

"Despite numerous challenges, the Croatian Atlantic Group achieved historically record sales results during 2022, and growth was achieved across all business and distribution areas. After the years dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, 2022 was marked by Russian aggression against Ukraine, which caused an energy crisis, additional disruptions in supply chains and significant price increases for almost all strategic raw materials and services.

We were only able to partially compensate for these price increases by optimising our internal resources and to a lesser extent by increasing our sales prices, which, as expected, led to a drop in profitability. Regardless of this, we continued with our investments in business development - innovations in our production portfolio, the modernisation of our production capacities and the continuation of the digital transformation,'' noted the President of the Management Board of the Croatian Atlantic Group, Emil Tedeschi.

For more, make sure to check out our business section.

March the 2nd, 2023 - The Croatian company Span has marked the year 2022 as its most successful business year to date, with the most growth for the company seen right here in Croatia and across the pond in the United States of America.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian company Span came out with its unaudited financial results for 2022 recently, and despite the current (and ongoing) challenging geopolitical and market circumstances, the year ended with growth across all key business indicators.

Span's revenues in 2022 amounted to an impressive 829.7 million kuna, which represents an increase of 8 percent when compared to pandemic-dominated 2021. EBITDA also increased by 48 percent and amounted to 72 million kuna at the end of 2022. EBITDA after non-recurring items increased in the observed period by 65 percent and amounted to 70.1 million kuna. The Croatian Span company's net profit at the end of 2022 therefore stood at a 50.7 million kuna, which is a very encouraging increase of 113 percent compared to 2021.

The highest growth in revenue within the Croatian company Span was achieved by services with high added value - mostly from the business area Software development and business solutions, which grew by 62 percent, and the area of Infrastructure services, Cloud and Cyber security, which achieved growth of 49 percent respectively in the observed period. The decrease in revenue in the Software Asset Management and Licensing segment results from a decrease in revenue over on the Ukraine market, where Microsoft provided Span's customers with free use of its products and services until the end of 2022. The decrease in revenue in that market was fully offset by revenue growth in other markets and in other segments business.

The share of revenues that the Croatian company Span achieved in foreign markets in 2022 amounted to 68 percent, with the markets of both Croatia and the USA recording the most significant growth of all.

"The circumstances that followed us in 2022 posed numerous challenges, but also created new business opportunities for us. It was a year in which we did everything to help our Ukrainian colleagues, but also a year in which we carried out some of the biggest projects in Span's history. The increased market demand presented us with the challenge of finding new experts, so during 2022, we hired as many as 228 new colleagues at Span and entered the new year as a team of more than 800 employees. Strategically, we remain focused on the growth of services with high added value with a focus on the areas of cloud and cyber security,'' emphasised Nikola Dujmovic, the company's founder and president of Span's Management Board.

Among the special events that marked the last quarter of 2022, the launch of the digital platform span.zone, which enables business users to manage existing licenses and cloud services, is worth noting. This was a tick in the box of achieving yet another of the company's strategic goals. The excellent business results achieved by the Croatian company Span after the IPO were also recognised by the European investment community. Span was included among the three best European small and medium-sized companies that entered the capital market, for which it was awarded the Rising Star award. For the second year in a row, Span also received HR Cloud's "Excellence in employee experience" award.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

March 1, 2023 - The teams in the SuperSport Croatian Cup semi-finals have been decided, with Slaven Belupo, Šibenik, Dinamo, and Hajduk as the final four left in the competition.

Slaven Belupo was the first to advance to the SuperSport Croatian Cup semi-finals. The first semi-final was played on Tuesday at the "Ivan Kušek Apaš" stadium in Koprivnica. Slaven Belupo beat the best second-division team, Rudeš 2:0. Belupo scored its first goal in the 88th minute after Benedik Mioč's shot bounced off the visiting defender Luka Pavković and into the net. Filip Hlevnjak scored for the final 2:0 in the first minute of stoppage time.

On Wednesday, the remaining three Croatian Cup quarter-final matches were played.

Šibenik reached the Croatian Cup semi-finals for the second time in the club's history, winning 2:0 away to the second league team NK BSK Bijelo Brdo. Knežević scored for Šibenik in the 20th minute and Arai in the 88th minute for the victory. 

In the next Cup quarter-final, Dinamo beat Lokomotiva after extra time 3:1 (1:1, 0:1) and qualified for the SuperSport Croatian Cup semi-finals. 

Lokomotiva took the lead with a goal by Silvio Goričan in the 37th minute, but Dario Špikić leveled the score at 1:1 in the second half, taking the game to extra time. Josip Drmić scored for Dinamo in the 47th second of extra time. Robert Ljubičić set the final result in the 117th minute. 

Hajduk was the last semi-finalist to qualify, beating Osijek 2:1 (1:0). Last season's Cup winner dominated most of the match. In the 21st minute, 16-year-old Luka Vušković scored for 1:0. In the 77th, Filip Krovinović scored for 2:0. Osijek's only goal was scored by 16-year-old Filip Živković, who made it 1:2 in the 84th minute. Interestingly, the young Hajduk player wrote the history of Hajduk and Croatian football in this quarter-final match. At 16 years and five days, Luka Vušković became the youngest scorer in the history of Hajduk's first team.

The draw for the semi-final meetings will take place next Monday.

To follow the latest sports news in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

March 1, 2023 - Who is the most impressive foreigner you have met in Croatia? For me, none I have met comes close to this Syrian student-turned-entrepreneur. 

Due to study in Italy, he pass through Zagreb and stayed, a decision which led to more than 50 years in Croatia during which he achieved so much. This despite having his business plans ruined twice, on two different continents.

The amazing story of Mohamed Radwan Joukhadar - born in Aleppo, found love in Vukovar - where the tragedy of war in his two cities did not dampen his determination to build a hugely successful business employing over 800 Croats and turning over more than 250 million euro a year, making it one of the top 40 companies in Croatia. Learn more on this story in the latest from the Fat Vlogger on YouTube.

Do you have a story of a foreigner doing incredible things in Croatia?

Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Subject Foreigner.  

****

You can subscribe to the Paul Bradbury Croatia Expert YouTube channel here.

What is it like to live in Croatia? An expat for 20 years, you can follow my series, 20 Ways Croatia Changed Me in 20 Years, starting at the beginning - Business and Dalmatia.

Follow Paul Bradbury on LinkedIn.

Croatia, a Survival Kit for Foreigners is now available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle.

March the 1st, 2023 - PetNula (petnula.hr), an innovative e-learning platform for the repeating of elementary school educational material, has been created and successfully launched in Ogulin.

As Lider writes, PetNula is the very first Croatian digital platform designed for the repeating of the material learning between the fifth to the eighth grade of primary school. It has been created from the desire to systematise the complete material of the upper grades of primary school in one place for children and enable them to test out their own skills and knowledge, and it has been available to users since back in mid-February.

With technology based on successful experiences from Poland, PetNula's methodology is fully adapted to the curriculum of the Croatian education system.

One of the initiators of the project, Natalia Zielinska, gathered a large number of teachers and educational experts together for the project, including the authors of textbooks, mentors at competitions, advisers and native speakers of foreign languages who developed the platform according to the structure and type of tasks from the NCVVO National Examination Guide.

''I've always been focused on education and the dissemination of knowledge, and these activities, due to or thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, began to flow into the digital world as well. I've been cooperating with the Polish e-Learning company GroMar for a long time now, and just as an example, GroMar created an official digital platform for the Polish education system from kindergarten to college, and as it has been operating in Croatia for three years, we recognised that there was space to offer users a new educational platform.

In Poland, there are already two such solutions; even high school students created one for their future colleagues, and such a process of practicing with mistakes and testing turned out to be a very effective way of learning, because learning is a process in itself that needs to be trained and improved,'' explained Zielinska.

GroMar is a Polish company for modern e-learning solutions that supports global companies such as PEPCO, DPD or SUZUKI in lifelong education and competence development, and their Croatian team initiated the development of an educational platform for primary school age.

''A large number of global studies show that children respond positively to e-learning platforms and learn more easily in such an environment, while exercises, quizzes and tests are among the formats recognised as the favourite options, which is why they've also been implemented into PetNula. The web application currently offers more than 1,400 tasks and materials for repetition in both Croatian and English languages, and enables users to efficiently systematise the learned content through infographics, tables for repetition and questions for self-assessment, providing them with feedback and the possibility to restart the tests,'' explained Rutva Primorac from GroMara.

You can learn more on the official PetNula website.

For more, check out our news section.

March the 1st, 2023 - The Croatian company Infobip has been presenting its brand new technological solution, Call Link, at the largest technology fair - MWC Barcelona.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the remarkable Croatian company Infobip, the world's most well-connected cloud communication platform, has launched a new and innovative video calling customer support technology to enable businesses to resolve their queries faster and reduce waiting times. This brand new solution, called Call Link, was presented at the largest mobile technology fair MWC in Barcelona.

Infobip's Call Link is designed for the needs of companies with a large number of customer inquiries, such as telecommunications and utility companies, as well as electronic equipment manufacturers, and is the simplest way for agents to establish live voice or video calls with their customers.

When customer experience is critical to business success, companies need to quickly and efficiently resolve their customers' queries. According to the results of a survey conducted by CRM platform HubSpot, 90 percent of users believe that a response time of 10 minutes or less is extremely important when they have an inquiry. However, companies often fail to meet customer expectations and multiply their calls to several different agents, which increases the waiting time. Call Link eliminates all of these problems.

Using a simple web link, customer service or technical service agents can automatically transfer written chat inquiries to voice or video calls. The Call Link solution generates a unique link, thanks to which the user doesn't have to install additional applications, which then improves their overall experience.

Call Link, which is already available to interested companies, removes the need for lengthy interactions between agents and customers, allowing companies to connect with their customers anywhere, anytime. Agents can share the link through any available channel, including WhatsApp, SMS and email, either via computer or mobile. With users increasingly using apps like WhatsApp, this new solution reflects the Croatian company Infobip's broader strategy to help businesses connect with their customers through the channels they want, at the time(s) they want.

Infobip's new tech offers several applications for businesses that want to improve their overall customer experience, increase retention and reduce their operating costs. In addition, it enables real-time status determination, where users can explain their queries via video call and customer support agents can fix those highlighted problems instantly. Such remote support reduces overall costs and the environmental impact of in-person visits to the user.

"Thanks to the Call Link solution, agents of companies that want to improve the experience of their users can very quickly and efficiently eliminate difficulties and solve problems, and at the same time shorten waiting times, reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction. In addition, since with the aforementioned solution they can generate as many video links as necessary, companies can smoothly increase their capacities and meet customer demand even during the busiest hours without difficulty. Based on information from clients who already use our product, we know that such synchronised communication helps them to process more user inquiries in a shorter time and thus not only increase productivity, but also achieve close communication with their end users, during which they will satisfy their needs in a practical and unobtrusive way,'' said Adrian Benic, Infobip's Chief Product Officer.

“Furthermore, Call Link provides businesses of various industries and sizes with affordable voice and video support that they wouldn't otherwise be able to use given the infrastructure requirements. This product is a testament to the Croatian company Infobip's unwavering commitment to being a complete multi-channel communication platform for everyone,'' concluded Benic.

For more, check out our dedicated news section.

March the 1st, 2023 - According to Accor's website, the new City Island Zagreb complex will be the home of the very first Pullman brand hotel, boasting 200 rooms in total.

As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, after the Mövenpick Hotel, the second hotel of the world-famous operator Accor is set to open its doors here in Zagreb at the end of this year or the beginning of next year, and it is set to become the very first hotel in Croatia that will operate under their premium Pullman brand.

The 200-room Pullman Zagreb hotel is being built in the new City Island Zagreb complex and is already being mentioned as one of Accor's new projects on their website, where other information about the Pullman brand can also be found. That confirms that the management contract has already been signed with the investor, but Accor's official announcement is still expected. On the ground, it has since been found out that the training of the future staff, who should be sufficiently professional to work for this kind of premium hotel, will begin soon.

The first Croatian Pullman is othewise going to be one of 53 hotels under development that will operate under this brand, along with 146 already opened Pullman hotels across 41 countries. The brand has the highest penetration in China and South Asia, and in Southern Europe only 8 percent of the buildings bear the Pullman hotel name. According to Accor's website, Pullman is a premium international brand mainly intended for international travellers who enjoy a combination of work and pleasure.

Pullman hotels are located in the busiest global cities and the most sought-after tourist destinations and have 4 and 5 stars. In addition to the one set to open in the new City Island Zagreb complex, Pullman Hotel Doha, Indonesia, Singapore, China are all being developed in parallel, and this year, Pullman will debut in Bulgaria as well.

This Accor brand has the most pronounced artistic and design features compared to all Accor brands and has facilities intended for both business and leisure guests, with an emphasis primarily placed on the congress section and high quality fitness facilities, which is also expected from the Zagreb Pullman hotel.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated news section.

March the 1st, 2023 - Once you've been approved for Croatian residence, the main bulk of your administrative woes will be over. No more standing in lines, stamps, and being frowned at by ill-informed clerks at MUP. No more limbo. But there are still rules to follow when it comes to how long you can be absent from the country for.

Citizens of the European Union/European Economic Area with temporary Croatian residence

If you're an EEA/EU citizen and you've been approved for temporary Croatian residence (this is typically approved for a period of five years, but it can be less), you're free to be absent from Croatian territory for no more than six calendar months per year. 

This means that as long as you're present in Croatia for six months every year, your temporary Croatian residence remains valid.

If you've sought specific permission from the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) to be gone for longer without endangering the validity of your residence permit, then you can be. It's worth noting that if you're gone longer than six months, or longer than one year (without permission in the case of the latter), your temporary residence permit and those tied to you, such as for your family members, can end up being terminated.

At the end of your five years of temporary Croatian residence, you're entitled to permanent residence in Croatia by way of EU law. In your case (unlike in the case of third country nationals), you are entitled to permanent residence after five years and one day of holding temporary Croatian residence (uinterrupted). You still need to get the green light from MUP and obtain your new permanent residence card, but once you have it, the rules change slightly, and I'll outline them below.

Citizens of the European Union/European Economic Area with permanent Croatian residence

If you're an EEA/EU citizen and you've been approved for permanent Croatian residence (this means you are free to live in Croatia without needing to adhere to any particular rules for as long as you want), you're free to be absent from Croatian territory for no more than two consecutive years at a time. 

This means that as long as you don't spend two entire years on the trot outside of Croatia, your permanent Croatian residence remains valid.

British nationals who are protected by the Withdrawal Agreement and have temporary residence

Citizens of Great Britain and Northern Ireland who exercised their rights to freedom of movement within the EU back when they were EU citizens (pre-Brexit) are protected by something called the Withdrawal Agreement. This gives them acquired rights and separates them both from British tourists and British citizens who applied for Croatian residence after Brexit was concluded (more precisely after the UK's transition period out of the EU ended on the 31st of December, 2020).

British nationals who are protected under the Withdrawal Agreement have residence cards which prove that, setting them apart from their post-Brexit counterparts and affording them more generous rules. 

If you're a pre-Brexit Brit (and you can prove it with the aforementioned residence card) with temporary residence, you're treated as if you were an EU/EEA citizen, meaning that you're free to be absent from Croatia for up to six months per calendar year without a problem.

British nationals who are protected by the Withdrawal Agreement and have permanent residence

Citizens of Great Britain and Northern Ireland who exercised their rights to freedom of movement within the EU back when they were EU citizens (pre-Brexit) are protected by something called the Withdrawal Agreement. This gives them acquired rights and separates them both from British tourists and British citizens who applied for Croatian residence after Brexit was concluded (more precisely after the UK's transition period out of the EU ended on the 31st of December, 2020).

British nationals who are protected under the Withdrawal Agreement have residence cards which prove that, setting them apart from their post-Brexit counterparts and affording them more generous rules. 

If you're a pre-Brexit Brit (and you can prove it with the aforementioned residence card) with permanent residence, you're free to be absent from Croatia for up to five consecutive years without endangering the validity of your permit.

Third country nationals with temporary Croatian residence

Third country nationals are citizens of countries which aren't member states of the EEA or the EU, or they're British citizens not covered by the Withdrawal Agreement. 

While holding temporary Croatian residence, third country nationals shouldn't be outside of Croatia for more than thirty days in one go, or for more than ninety days in total, if their temporary Croatian residence permit has been approved a period of one year.

If their temporary Croatian residence has been approved for two years, then they risk their permits being cancelled if they spend more than sixty days in one go, or 180 days in total outside of Croatia.

If you have justified reasons for being outside for longer periods, then you can let MUP know and see if you can get permission.

Third country nationals with permanent Croatian residence

Much like pre-Brexit Brits, third country nationals who hold permanent Croatian residence are free to be absent from Croatia for a decent chunk of time. If you've resided outside of Croatian territory for longer than six years, your permit can be terminated. It can also be terminated if you've resided outside of the EEA for longer than one year consecutively.

For more on moving to and living in Croatia, make sure to follow our dedicated lifestyle section. An article exploring everything to do with How to Croatia is published each Wednesday.