In 2014, Romania’s rail freight operator, CFR Marfa recorded losses valuated at RON 27,1 mil (EUR 6 mil), shows the financial situation indicators released by the Ministry of Finance. Although CFR Marfa registered losses, the resigning minister Ioan Rus declared in February 2015 that CFR Marfa had profit. ”At this moment, CFR Marfa is a company with profit, as CFR Calatori (state owned rail passenger operator) and CFR SA (infrastructure manager). We will further reduce costs and increase the revenues to have a price for privatization process, because the price is important, ” rus declared after meetings with World Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund.
Contacted by Gandul, Ioan Rus declared that his was referring to operational profit, not the net one. ”All companies have big losses from previos years, but if the current activity is profitable, you can reduce the losses and during some years you can reach a real profit,” Rus said.
In January 2015, CFR Marfa estimated that in 2014 will register a RON 23,6 mil (EUR 5.32 mil) profit, after a RON 1.11 bn (EUR 250 mil) revenue and RON 1,09 bn (EUR 246 mil) expenditure. But according to Ministry of Finance, in 2014, CFR Marfa had revenues valued at RON 972 mil (EUR 219.4 mil) and the expenditure, valuated at RON 999.2 mil (EUR 225.57 mil).
We mention that in September 2014 CFR Marfă announced a tender for the sale of scrap metal obtained from the dismantling of 2,450 freight cars, the amount calculated from the estimated sale being around EUR 11 million.
Authorities have pledged to international creditors to privatize the state-owned company but the process failed in 2013. Subsequently, the Government announced an aggressive restructuring of CFR Marfă, and following the discussions with experts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission (EC) and the World Bank (WB) the Romanian Government, in February 2015, said that the privatization process will be resumed with the intention to list 51% of the company shares to the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB).
Romanian authorities are analyzing a possible privatisation of rail freight carrier CFR Marfa by listing a majority stake on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, instead of selling it via a tender. Iulian Matache, state secretary at the Transport Ministry, said that “there are talks regarding the privatisation of CFR Marfa, in which we propose a stock exchange listing, which is a much clearer […] and more transparent solution.”
CFR Marfă has not reported any profits since 2007, instead the total losses amounted to EUR 367 million in 2008 -2012, according to the data available from the Ministry of Finance and Ziarul Financiar newspaper calculations. In 2013 CFR Marfă also recorded losses of RON 262 million (around EUR 60 million) in relation to business activities of RON 922 million ( EUR 209 million).
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