Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – PKP PR, Poland’s state-owned regional railway carrier, whose last year’s loss was bigger than expected, had its CEO changed yesterday. The company should start repaying debts this month but has no funds.
Yesterday, the shareholders of PKP PR dismissed its CEO Leszek Ruta. Jen Tereszczuk was appointed the new CEO. He was responsible for marketing in one of regional units of PKP PLK, another company of the PKP railways group.
“The change is connected with plans to implement the new strategy prepared by the ministry of infrastructure. A person with knowledge about transport and railway access issues was needed here”, Michal Wrzosek, PKP spokesman explained.
Last year, PKP PR had a bigger loss than its management had expected.
“In 2004, the company had PLN 760m (EUR 200.4m) of net loss. We hoped it would not exceed PLN 500m in 2005. It is PLN 100m higher. Costs fell but so did sales because local authorities which order our trains, paid below PLN 400m instead of PLN 450m, which they had promised. We did not receive the subsidy from the budget for carrying passengers between voivodships nor PLN 300m for reduced fees sold in the period from October 2001 till the end of 2003”, Leszek Ruta enumerated.
PKP PR was founded in 2001 to offer public services where else in the world are co-financed by the state. Subsidies were meant to be regular. The previous management of the company said it would apply for PLN 2 billion of state help to repair its budget.
PKP PR should start repaying its debt of over PLN 700m this month. The first installment amounts to PLN 30m. PKP PR does not have such funds. Unless the company pays debts on time, creditors may withdraw from the settlement agreement which reduced the debt by 40 percent. The Ministry of Infrastructure is preparing a debt repayment schedule for PKP PR.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.264)