Hard hit by the health crisis, SNCF could lose nearly 5 billion euros this year, estimated its CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou on Wednesday.
“We are in negative this year. We are going to end the year with a significant loss,” said Farandou before the Senate land use planning committee.
“I remind you that in the first half of the year, which gives an idea in the middle of the year, we were in net income at -2.5 billion” euros (precisely -2.39 billion, editor’s note). “We will not be far from doing x2”, he added.
“I would not have said that before confinement number 2,” added the leader, who hoped “a second half less bad” than the first.
“I do not validate any figure at this stage”, he then insisted on clarifying, noting that his calculation was still “a somewhat rapid estimate”. “We see that it is a lot of money. (…) It is as much money that it will be necessary to go to seek on the financial markets”, noted Mr. Farandou.
During “the whole of 2020, we went to the financial markets, to raise money. To repay our loans, to pay salaries, to pay our suppliers …”, he recalled. “We see the SNCF debt soar.”
“We will go part of the way by assignments,” he said.
Jean-Pierre Farandou confirmed that the public group had put up for sale the Ermewa wagon rental company, which he estimates at 2.5 billion euros.
The group is considering the sale of the 50% it holds in the locomotive rental company Akiem, but no decision has yet been taken, he added.
“I was clearly opposed to any idea of the sale of Geodis and Keolis”, the logistics and public transport subsidiaries of the SNCF group which “are at the heart of the company’s strategy”, he stressed on the other hand. .
Mr. Farandou, who has headed SNCF since November 2019, must be reappointed, as a result of the transformation of the public group into a public limited company on January 1.
The process was delayed, the pandemic having prevented the election of the directors representing the staff in the spring, and his appointment must be validated by the committees for regional planning and sustainable development of the National Assembly and the Senate.
■
These were the details of the news SNCF could lose up to 5 billion euros in 2020, believes Farandou for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at news1.news and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
