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Local and foreign investors are awaiting the results of the first quarter of 2011 of several of the strongest companies in the country. The leader in cement industry Titan, the telecommunications company OTE and Coca Cola 3E are some of the healthiest and most active companies on the Greek market and the Athens Exchange, and economic analysts consider them a barometer of the state of the local economy. They have a serious impact not only in the country but also in the region and their condition could be considered a measure of development in the economic climate in a wider scale.

The results of Titan, which owns the Bulgarian cement plant Zlatna Panega are expected to be announced first. According to initial estimates of Titan’s management, 2011 is expected to be a very difficult year. The company estimated that the difficult situation on international markets and the increased consumer and business uncertainty would be the reason for the reduction in both the public and private activity and of investment respectively. To resist the hostile business environment, the company has already introduced measures to ensure the necessary cash flows used to repay credit obligations. At the same time, it cut the operational costs and optimised the production, and does not exclude the realisation of small investment projects.

In the first quarter of this year, the subsidiary of Titan Global Finance Corporation has borrowed a corporate tax of 585 million euros to refund the existing loans of the company. It also transferred the trademark Ionia and some of the company's assets to the Yalco company.

Immediately after the announcement of Titan’s quarterly results the investors expect the January-March 2011 report of OTE - the largest telecommunications company in Greece. The first expectations for the earnings are not very positive, taking into account that the company operates under the regulatory framework of Greece, which is now put to test. According to the manager of the corporation Michalis Tsamas, the management will try to minimize the effect of the reduced revenue through a series of measures. He expects that the profit level will remain at the levels from previous periods, suggesting that the corporation has tightened its spending. Tsamas stresses that the restructuring of the company will be accelerated in order to ensure good profitability and liquidity during the crisis.

The 25,000 euros incentive for the retirement of 250 employees in compliance with the current legislation was one of the measures to reform operations in the difficult macroeconomic environment. At the same time, having taken a loan of 900 million, it issued three-year bonds worth 500 million euros to cover old debts maturing in 2012.

The 2011 quarterly results of Coca Cola 3E are expected on the 10^th of May this year. The company still in 2010 has taken measures to reduce significantly its operating costs and increase its competitiveness. Last year, the corporation took a loan of 37 million euros to reform the structural base, which would save it between 35-40 million euros per year. Moreover, it sold its stake in the Italian company for automatic vending machines Eurmatik Srl, which brought 13.5 million euros. Much of the funds from the fiscal consolidation of the company are invested primarily in marketing and promotional purposes. The Executive Manager Doros Constantinou is adamant that the company remains focused on improving the efficiency and customer service. "We are confident that we will continue to maintain the strong cash flows and increase our goals for 2011-2013 to around 1.6 million euros."

These three corporations are some of the many companies, large or small, that go against the current economic crisis that has pushed the country. To make the positive examples of successful companies popular, the research firm Stat Bank decided to hold the event Diamonds in 2011 on the 28^th of June this year, which will present the healthiest and most successful companies in Greece. The requirement is the enterprises to have a turnover of at least 14 million euros per year, to be profitable for 2008 and 2009, have a minimum profit of 800,000 euros before taxes and the return on equity to be higher than 4 %.