7.7% sales boost for Hartmann-Rico in Slovakia

2010-03-05

Hartmann-Rico, a manufacturer of single-use medical instruments and hygiene products, reported a 7.7% increase in sales revenues in Slovakia in 2009 to €27.3m, according to the SITA news agency. The net profit of the company on the Slovak market came to €4m, an 8.7% year-on-year increase.
According to Lubomir Palenik, the CEO of Hartmann-Rico Slovakia, the company is experiencing increasingly difficult problems with payments for supplies to hospitals. In 2009 the amount owed by hospitals to the company increased by €1.5m, and now stands at around €4m. In 2009 the hospitals repaid €1.9m of the debt with the help of government funds, but the problem reappeared at the beginning of the year, when they were able to pay for only about 53% of the goods delivered.
In 2010 the company intends to strengthen its position on the market which caters for medical devices and services supplied to the healthcare facilities and also plans to start selling colostomy bags after forming a strategic partnership with Dansac, a producer and distributor of stoma care products.
Hartmann-Rico is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of medical instruments and hygiene products in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It was established in 1991, after the merger of Paul Hartmann and Rico Veverska Bityska. The company employs 38 people in Slovakia.