PPC says bad debt provisions hit profits in Jan-Sept

Gazzetta team 26 Νοεμβρίου 2015 - 14:04

Public Power Corporation (PPC) on Thursday said an increase in overdue payment by consumers led to losses in the third quarter of the year, although the corporation said that it remained in profitability in the nine-month period of 2015.

Provisions for bad customer claims jumped to 603 million euros in the January-September period, from 195.3 million in the same period of 2014, while provisions for industrial consumers rose slightly to 64.6 million euros in the nine-month period from 63.6 million last year.

Nine-month EBITDA fell by 21 million euros, or 2.6 pct, while pre-tax earnings dropped to 63.3 million euros from 116.2 million in the same period last year and after tax earnings plunged to 5.9 million euros from 121.8 million in 2014.

PPC reported a pre-tax loss of 121.4 million euros in the third quarter, from earnings of 9.0 million last year, despite a decline in spending on liquid fuel, natural gas and energy purchases.

Emmanouil Panagiotakis, chairman and chief executive of PPC, commenting on the results said that collecting bad debt was the most urgent and serious problem for the corporation and stressed that resolving this problem was a top priority.