Ostrava, North Moravia, July 20 (CTK) – Vitkovice a.s. engineering firm, the umbrella for services for its subsidiaries from former Vitkovice Machinery Group, made Kc4.5bn loss last year, Kc3.3bn higher than in 2016, spokeswoman Eva Kijonkova told CTK today.
The management ascribes the worsening to extraordinary accounting operations linked with economic development of the individual subsidiaries, she added.
Sales were worth Kc976.7m last year, compared with 2016’s Kc1.18bn.
“The bottom line was significantly influenced by extraordinary operations. In particular adjustments to financial investments at the level of over Kc3bn had a large impact,” Kijonkova said.
The adjustments were made for companies designed for sale or those in problems, she added.
Besides that, at the time when the financial statement for 2017 was processed, adjustments for claims on subsidiaries for Kc1.4bn had to be taken into consideration, Kijonkova remarked.
“Vitkovice wants to cover the loss partly from retained profit from previous years and the rest by a share capital cut in the form of lowering the nominal value of Vitkovice a.s. shares by Kc290 to Kc10 apiece,” she said.
The business results and loss covering will be discussed at an extraordinary general meeting which, according to the invitation published today, is to take place on August 21.
The meeting’s agenda, released on Vitkovice’s website, also includes consolidated statement of accounts for 2016.
Vitkovice a.s was earlier the umbrella for energy, legal, logistic and other services for Vitkovice Machinery Group.
In the past years, some of the group’s companies got into financial problems. They were solved by restructuring, sale or entry of investors.
As recently as three years ago, the group had over 8,000 employees. At the end of 2016, it employed only some 6,500 people and at the end of 2017 it had some 3,000 employees.
Now less than 2,000 people work in the group. “The people have not lost their job. They are just no more registered in the group’s structures,” Kijonkova explained.
The drop in workforce was also influenced by the separation of Cylinders Holding with around 1,000 employees, she added.
The name Vitkovice Machinery Group is not used any more, now there is Vitkovice a.s. and its sbusidiaries, Kijonkova noted.