Financial Performance of 152 Bulgarian State-Owned Companies Deteriorated by BGN 739 M in 2014

The financial performance of 152 companies with a state-owned stake of over 50% deteriorated substantially in 2014 as compared to 2013, according to Bulgarian economic policy think-tank Institute for Market Economics (IME).

The IME published Saturday an assessment of the financial position of state-owned companies which had released their 2014 financial reports in May, hospitals excluded.

According to the analysis, the 152 state-owned companies reported after-tax profit of BGN 496 M in 2013, while in 2014 they posted a total loss of over BGN 243 M.

This means that the financial performance of these state-owned companies deteriorated by BGN 739 M in a year.

The main contributor to the decline is the National Electric Company (NEK), which saw its loss increase over 4-fold in just one year.

Apart from the deterioration in financial performance of these 152 companies, 2014 also brought an increase in the number of loss making companies.

In 2013, 105 of these 152 companies reported a profit, 5 neither made profits nor suffered losses, and 42 registered losses, while in 2013 the number of companies that made a profit stood at 93, the ones that neither made profits nor suffered losses were 2, and the loss-making firms increased to 54.

The largest net profit in 2013 and in 2014 was reported by the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH).

Despite that, the profit of BEH dropped by around 33% in a year.

The top 10 of profit-making state-owned companies includes mostly firms in the spheres of energy and infrastructure.
NEK was the company that registered the largest loss in 2014, at nearly BGN 600 M.

The loss of the state-owned power utility increased over 4-fold compared to 2013.

Three of the 10 companies that...