Railway boss will attend to €2.6 billion debt pile

The president of Comboios de Portugal, Portugal’s railway company, was cheery about the business despite recognising that any company with €2.6 billion in debt can never truly be happy.

Carlos Gomes Nogueira, said today that the problem of CP’s debt is "suffocating the business" despite trading moving slowly towards some positive results.

Nogueira has not released the 2018 results yet, but the year before saw losses fall by €32.6 million to €112 million and a cut in losses, or even a small surplus, would be good for the image and general morale.

Speaking today at the committee of Economy, Innovation and Public Works, Nogueira said that the company is moving towards positive results, "with financial restructuring, investment in rolling stock and a growing number of railway users," despite his regret at a lack of public investment in the railroad in recent years - a point well made as even the current 'investment' seems little more than political tom-foolery in this election year.

"We have an asphyxiating debt of €2.6 billion," said Nogueira, adding that management was in the process of resolving the financial restructuring of the business, a move that seems long overdue but, hey, he gets paid every month anyway so no need to rush things.

Comments  

0 #3 James Mayor 2019-03-11 19:01

The fact that I pay a little more for my rail ticket each time I travel from Porto to Lisbon and back, will I hope help a little in reducing this gigantic debt pile

+2 #2 Peter Booker 2019-03-09 08:15

Referring to Dennis.P´s comment: after the disastrous audits in Britain (e.g. Carillion) no-one now trusts British auditors, particularly the Big Four. The Parliamentary committee is now considering whether auditing should be separated from other types of financial service, about 50 years too late. It is not only in Southern Europe that auditors work the system.

-1 #1 Dennis.P 2019-03-08 08:56

If Centeno is going to audit Novo Banco he should be auditing all the other Government departments and enterprises. Looking for anomalies.But using anonymous auditors, either private sector or from other departments so as to dig in. However, in southern European cultures there is no certainty this will work. Italy had tried this with its 2015 Milan Expo and within weeks the Mafiosi had cracked the secrecy and put its own boys (secretly) back in control.

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