Thirty-three Portuguese state-owned companies were in “technical bankruptcy” at the end of 2020, reflecting the “very negative impact” of the COVID-19 pandemic on companies, particularly in the sectors of health and transportation and warehousing.
According to Lusa, these are the findings of a report released by the Public Finance Council (CFP), the country’s main independent watchdog on the ground.
Titled ‘State Business Sector 2019-2020’, the report published today said that the financial results of 88 public non-financial companies in the country “did significantly during the two years 2019-2020 due to the negative effects of Covid-19″. denotes. .-19”. Its financial position and assets were also “severely affected”.
Overall, this group of companies reported a combined loss of €2.5 billion for 2020, €1.7 billion more than in 2019.
Only 27 companies (or group of companies) reported positive net results in 2020, while another 61 reported losses.
The health, transport and storage sectors were responsible for 99% of these losses, with a total value of 775.7 million euros in health (25.6 million euros higher than losses in 2019) and 1.7 billion euros (against a combined) in transport and storage. with a loss of €1.5 billion in 2019).
The national airline was responsible for more than half of the combined losses, with losses of TAP 1.4 billion euros.
EBITDA (earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortization) decreased from €1.5 billion in 2019 to €12 million in 2020, while operating profit rose to the red from €1.6 billion. Euros, up from a profit of €131 million in 2019 Competition.
In 2020, public non-financial corporations had a total of 144,714 employees, a turnover of EUR 9.3 billion and a gross value added of EUR 4.7 billion, respectively, up 4.5%, down 23.5% and down 38.5% from 2019.
At the balance sheet level, although the assets of this group of companies increased from EUR 621.5 million to EUR 59.4 billion by 2019, their liabilities increased even more: from EUR 1.2 billion to EUR 56.2 billion, which “strongly degraded equity ” of these companies”, in the words of the report, amounted to 3.15 billion euros, a decrease of 15% compared to 2019.
“This decline in equity reflects negative results for the 2020 fiscal year, which absorbed a large portion of the capital inflows made by the state that year (+1,500 million euros),” said the report, which said As a result, 33 public companies had negative equity at the end of 2020 (thus finding themselves in a state of technical bankruptcy).
Of these 33 companies, five represent about 90% of the sector’s total negative value: Parvalorem (negative equity capital of €3.997 billion), Metro do Porto (negative €3.456 billion), TAP (negative €2.128 billion), Railways Operators CP (negative €1.872 billion) and PARUPS (negative €913.2 billion).
According to the PCP, the financial structure and profitability ratios of non-financial public companies also “suffered a strong decline in 2020, reflecting their inability to meet their commitments to the state and creditors”.
Global liquidity at the end of 2020 was 56.7% (or 9.1 percent less than a year ago), financial autonomy declined to 5.3% (-1.0 points) and solvency decreased to 5.6% (-1.1 points). The indebtedness ratio was 94.7% (+1.0 percentage point) and the debt servicing capacity was 109.9% (-0.9 percentage point).
The PCP report states, “Analysis of these results confirms the low capacity that equities have to meet the medium and long-term responsibilities of these companies and debt strengthens the financial dependence of the capital sector, resulting in higher financial leverage.” There is a leverage effect.” ,
In 2020, the return on sales of public non-financial corporations was 0.1% (12.1 percentage points lower than year-ago) and the return on assets was -2.7% (2.9 points down) in 2020.
These indicators show, “in practical terms, a decline in economic efficiency, which translates into more direct budgetary pressure”, states the PCP. With impact.and the ability to generate profit from these assets.
“In global terms, excluding companies with negative equities, it appears that the return on equity ratio in 2020 was -1.2%”, the result being “reflecting the poor financial performance of the state’s inability to provide returns.” [como] shareholder”.
However, the report noted that “results are differentiated by sector of activity”, “real estate and asset management sectors showing the best profitability ratios” and “conversely, the health and transportation and warehousing sectors show the worst results.”
