The decline of the world market of telecommunications equipment and the lack of substantial contracts with the new operators that entered the market after January 1st this year again hinder the turnover of Romanian producer Intrarom. Moreover, these factors also trigger an internal reorganisation process, including layoffs, and shift the focus of the company's operations from equipment production to IT projects and services, such as system integration and software development.
"For this year, we expect turnover to equal last year's, i.e. 50-55 million euros, and EBITDA to be worth 5-7 million euros," stated Mihai Gherman, Intrarom's deputy general manager. "About half of our turnover is derived from export activities, and telecom market recession has obviously hit us", says Gherman. "Our exports are down to half compared to those in 2001".
Moreover, investments aimed at telecom infrastructure have not been significant in Romania lately. Optical fibre installation has been a "national sport" for some time now, so that the infrastructure is almost finalised, and the new entrants on this market have not come up with considerable orders, the company's manager explains.
Two years ago, the company announced a more than twice higher turnover: 118 million dollars. But, at that time, Intrarom benefited from investments carried out by RomTelecom and Cosmorom, its major customers. Things are completely different now, as the fate of Cosmorom continues to be uncertain.
Moreover, Cosmorom owes more than 100 million dollars to Intracom Group (Intrarom's parent company), with intense negotiations currently carried out in Athens with OTE (the majority shareholder in Cosmorom) over these debts.
"We have found no solution yet and the possibility of both companies resorting to a settlement in Paris is not ruled out," says Mihai Gherman, who estimates Cosmorom's debts to Intrarom at 23 million euros, no penalties included.
Cosmorom's debts also impact Intrarom's potential floating, which was mentioned three years ago. victor@zf.ro
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