Lisbon, July 22, 2024 (Lusa) - Portugal's Ministry of Finance said on Monday that Parpública would not provide Inapa with the funding it had requested and that it would monitor the company's insolvency, which it had already announced.
Lusa contacted the Ministry of Finance today after Inapa announced its insolvency on Sunday evening due to lack of funds. The company said that it had made ‘every effort in good time’ with creditors and shareholders, in particular the largest shareholder, the public company Parpública, to avoid the insolvency of the German subsidiary but that without this it will file for insolvency in the next few days.
In response to Lusa, the Ministry of Finance said that it only found out about the ‘critical situation’ Inapa was in on 11 July (when the shares were suspended) and that it was then that it called Parpública, which explained that Inapa had requested an injection of €12 million for immediate cash needs in the German operation when it already had a request for €15 million for restructuring.
In view of this information, opinions were requested from Parpública, the Directorate-General for Treasury and Finance (DGTF) and the Technical Unit for Accompanying and Monitoring the Public Business Sector (UTAM), with the Finance Ministry saying that the three entities concluded that ‘the proposal did not fulfil solid conditions, nor did it demonstrate the economic and financial viability that would say that the State would be reimbursed’.
The Ministry of Finance said that, given these opinions, the lack of a recovery strategy for Inapa (in which Parpública is a major but not the majority shareholder) and considering that the company does not have a ‘strategic activity for the Portuguese economy’ ‘confirmed Parpública's opinion not to go ahead with the financing operations requested by Inapa’.
‘The government will monitor the insolvency process,’ concludes the ministry.
Founded in 1965, the Inapa group's main shareholder is the public company Parpública, with 44.89% of the share capital, while the company Nova Expressão has 10.85% and Novo Banco 6.55%. The remaining capital is dispersed.
In 2023, according to the report and accounts, the paper distributor (which also operates in the packaging and visual communication sectors) had 1,478 employees and operated in 10 countries.
The company's main operation was in Germany, where it had bought several companies in recent years. In 2023, it was from this market that more than 60% of the group's revenues came from and where it had 821 employees.
France - where it bought a major company in 2016 - is the second country with the most employees, 330, followed by Portugal, with 204 workers.
In 2023, the Inapa group made a loss of €8.0 million, compared to a profit of €17.8 million in 2022, with sales falling by 20% to €968.7 million.
When announcing its results at the end of April, the company linked the losses to the fall in demand for paper in Western Europe (-25%).
Quoted in that statement to the market, the group's government chairman, Frederico Lupi, anticipated a period of ‘enormous uncertainties and challenges’, but considered that the group has the capacity to respond, noting that measures were underway to make it ‘more agile than before, giving it a better capacity to respond to the different scenarios’ it may face.
After announcing its insolvency on Sunday evening, today the company announced that Frederico Lupi has resigned. Several directors have also tendered their resignations.
IM/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
