State assets earning meager profits

Despite the high expectations that have been cultivated, Greece has so far failed to exploit the full potential of its state-owned real estate.

This has been made painfully obvious by the meager earnings and profits shown for yet another year by the Public Properties Company (ETAD), which has taken over most of the state's real estate.

More specifically, the state-owned company posted revenues last year that barely surpassed 47 millions euros and net profits of 10 million euros.

Based on these figures and given that it owns or manages roughly 80,000 properties, ETAD earned last year an average of 600 euros in revenue and a net profit of 135 euros on each of its properties.

One of the main problems faced by ETAD is that the ownership status of a large proportion of these properties which it is managing remains unclear due to a host of legal snags.

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