The core company accounted for the lion's share of the record figures, posting sales revenue of EUR 280.5m, 4% more than the year before. EBITDA reached EUR 33.7m last year, while net profit went up 17% year-on-year to EUR 26.5m.

Roughly 680 of the group's nearly 890 employees work for the core company, which produced 1.5 million industrial energy cells and 2.3 million starting batteries in 2018.

The company said that it expected last years results to improve even further this year. The core company plans to generate EUR 283.6m in sales revenue, producing 2.6 million starting batteries and 1.6 million industrial cells.

The company plans to invest EUR 7.9m to modernise and expand the production of starting batteries, improve infrastructure and fire safety.

In an effort to attract qualified workers the group increased salaries by about 7% last autumn to an average of EUR 2,160 gross excluding lunch and transportation compensations. The figure is significantly above the regional and national averages, with the latter standing at EUR 1,729 in January.