PPC losses grow after writing down
 value of coal-fired units

Greece’s biggest power utility Public Power Corporation (PPC) on Thursday posted a net loss of 1.68 billion euros for 2019 after it wrote down the value of its coal-fired plants.

PPC, which is 51 percent state-owned and plans to switch off all but one of its coal-fired plants by 2023, said the figure compared with a net loss of 903.8 million euros in 2018.

Results were also hurt by a provision for the future dismantling of the loss-making plants and mines and full land restorations once the plants stop operations.

Adjusted for one-off items, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) dropped 17.4 percent to 333.6 million euros.

PPC, which provides 60 percent of Greece’s electricity, has seen its finances suffer in recent years and still has more than 2.7 billion euros in unpaid bills owed by customers who struggled during the country’s economic crisis.

New management who took over last year cut price discounts and payroll costs under a plan to overhaul the utility, moves which helped boost EBITDA to 236.8 million euros in the final quarter of 2019, up from 44.7 in the same period in 2018.

[Reuters]