Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Shareholders controlling 66 percent of Stocznia Gdynia (SG) shipyard were present at last meeting, too few to decide whether operations should be continued despite losses. “Break has been announced till July 4th”, Krzysztof Grabowski, SG management advisor said. The future of SG depends not only on its shareholders but also on the industry development agency ARP. The agency is currently checking the restructuring report.
If the agency decides the restructuring programme is finished, it will be shareholders solely who will decided about SG. The shipyard will soon get funds from ARP. Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner launched investigation against public help in Polish shipyards claiming that it was spent on debt repayment. Arkadiusz Krezel, ARP CEO is not afraid SG will have troubles. “Public help should help cure the company, including financial restructuring. Therefore, there are no reasons not to devote those funds to repay creditors”, he explained.
Some shareholders believe, the shipyard could be profitable today. “It could be profitable even at present exchange rates and steel prices. At today’s ship prices, even without renegotiating former agreements, SG could have net income of PLN 50.3-61m (EUR 12.4-15.1m)”, Marek Roman, the general director of Evip consulting group (one of SG shareholders) commented. He stressed that the shipyard would have to increase production from 330,000 tonnes CGT to 400,000 tonnes CGT.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.247)Poland/Enterprises/Heavy Industry