OTE claims 8-month performance data are incorrect
Telecom company OTE disputed figures published on Wednesday in the Greek edition of Kathimerini that its eight-month pretax earnings were down 15.3 percent year-on-year, saying the company does not fully calculate figures on an eight-month basis. Kathimerini reported that OTE’s revenues rose 6.5 percent to 763.4 billion drachmas (2.24 billion euros) in the year until August, while pretax earnings fell 15.3 percent to 124.1 billion drachmas. I don’t know where these figures came from. We don’t report eight-month results. We gather financial information on a monthly basis and do preliminary closings, but these could be missing data, OTE chief financial officer Dimitris Kouvatsos told Reuters. He added that OTE only reports financial results on a quarterly basis. Kathimerini had written that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 6.7 percent to 315 billion drachmas. The article did not specify whether the figures were calculated by Greek or international accounting standards.Analysts said the figures were probably restricted to parent company performance. In the first half of 2001, OTE reported a 20-percent increase in consolidated EBITDA and an 18.9-percent increase in pretax profit, on sales growth of 13 percent. (Combined reports)
