Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 13-02-21

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] New search engine allows fast retrieval of public admin documents

[02] Souvlaki and fast food sector post large losses

[01] New search engine allows fast retrieval of public admin documents

Introduced in 2010, Diavgeia made it obligatory to post public administration documents online before application. It allowed the documents to be searchable through et.diavgeia.gov.gr, which became difficult to navigate after the thousands of documents uploaded daily. At this writing, the total number of documents posted online is over 6.77 million, at a total volume of 33.3 GB.

The new search engine, activated in September 2011, is the brainchild of Evangelos Banos, an IT engineer, and will simplify and speed up searches in the ever-growing database.

[02] Souvlaki and fast food sector post large losses

Leading the drop in revenues was the pizza sector, with 30 pct in losses, followed by the souvlaki sector (28 pct), the fast food stores (26 pct), the sandwich and snack chains (24 pct), coffee stores (24 pct) and brand restaurants (23 pct).

The numbers have forced stores to leave the market, while 2012 data showed that labour in the sector fell by 20 pct. In 2011, Hellastat's report showed, the McDonald's chain sold 19 of its stores in Greece to Premier Capital, while the Applebee's chain pulled out of Greece entirely due to significant losses and inability to meet its financial obligations.

Based on 229 businesses analysed in the report, turnover dropped in 2011 by 11.5 pct to 407.83 million euros. The average reduction was at -14.7 pct, while only 8 pct of companies showed a rise in revenues.

EBITDA shrank by 70 pct, down to 6.86 million euros. With the exception of McDonald's, which showed a strong improvement, pretax losses spread to 21 million euros, from 3 million in 2010.

The average margin of gross profits remained high, at 55.5 pct; however, the operational margin shrank from 5.3 pct to 2.7 pct, while the pretax profit margin turned negative, to -2.1 pct from 0.6 pct in 2010. Capital leverage remained high (1.8 to 1). The average return on equity was negative in 2011 (-0.9 pct from 8.6 pct in 2010), affected by the significant drop in profit margins.

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