The Public Power Corporation (PPC) announced increased operating profitability in the nine months of 2023, due to the reduction of operating expenses, and mainly expenses for energy purchases, natural gas and CO2 emissions. More specifically, earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation (EBITDA) totaled 936.8 million euros, up 292.6 million euros (45.4%) compared to the corresponding period of 2022.
In the third quarter of 2023, EBITDA reached 347.1 million euros, compared to 215 million euros in the same quarter of 2022.
In the nine-month period, the company announced profits of 391.2 million euros versus losses of 151.1 million in the same period last year, as they included the 141.6 million euro profit from the sale of the former lignite areas to the Greek State, which was recorded in the second quarter results.
Commenting on the financial results, the president and CEO of PPC SA, Giorgos Stassis said: “Our performance for the nine months of 2023 was strong, despite the recent challenges, such as geopolitical tensions, the energy crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, thereby highlighting the resilience of our business model.”
“We were able to accelerate our investments in strategic areas such as renewables sources and grids, while maintaining our net debt to EBITDA ratio within our targets, liquidity at a high level, and continuing to support our customers by providing competitive tariffs. For the full year, we are confident that we will achieve our recurring EBITDA target of approximately 1.2 billion euros.”
“In renewable energy sources, we now have 670 MW of capacity in Greece and we are proceeding with additional projects with a total capacity of 1.3 GW. At the same time, we are expanding our presence in countries in our region – according to our Business Plan – such as Romania, after the completion of the acquisition of Enel’s activities in the country. This is a transaction that is a milestone for PPC in order to become the leading clean energy company in Southeast Europe.
In Greece, the agreement to acquire Kotsovolos accelerates PPC’s transition to an integrated provider of products and services both digitally and physically, based on the customer-centricity pillar of our strategy. We are excited about the ongoing transformation of PPC and we will present our updated strategy as well as our vision for the new PPC at Capital Markets Day in late January in London.”
