The Power Public Corp. (PPC) group last week reported 804.7 million euros in EBITDA, results that did not include the Independent Power Transmission Operator (ADMIE) S.A., which was legally detached from the group in 2017.
The PPC group, the former state power monopoly that still enjoys a dominant position as the country’s foremost retail and wholesale provider, released its annual results for 2017, whereby EBITDA showed the small decrease, 0.8 percent, from 2016 – when it reached 811.3 million euros.
The power utility noted that a reduction in provisions for bad debts, by 400 million euros, positively affected results. The ASE-listed company also recognized revenue of 359.9 million euros that it is owed by the state for offering discount power rates to specific social strata (between 2011-2016) and higher costs it incurred during what was described as an “energy crisis” between December 2016 and January 2017 (70 million euros).
The “downside” of PPC’s results was a significant decrease in after-tax profitability, by 47.9 percent, or 88.7 million euros in absolute terms, down from 170.2 million euros in 2016.
Pre-tax profits reached 60.5 million euros, down from 125.4 million euros in 2016.
Turnover also dropped in 2017 by 3.6 percent (186.2 million euros) and reached 4.943 billion euros, down from 5.13 billion euros in 2016, a development directly attributed to a decline in PPC’s market share – from 91.8 percent 2016 to 86.7 percent in 2017.
In a related development, in an announcement by PPC to the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) the utility’s management noted that a regular shareholders’ general assembly will take place on June 5, where PPC’s board of directors is expected to propose to the general assembly – where the state is the dominant shareholder – not to pay a dividend for 2017’s results.
