The authorities will conduct an audit of the “financial hole” in Russian Post – Kommersant

The Board of Directors of Russian Post initiated an independent audit of the company’s expenses. Based on its results, the issue of state support will be decided, reports RBC. The measures include additional capitalization of the company by approximately 117 billion rubles. and debt refinancing at the expense of the National Welfare Fund at 3.5% (as of January 2023, the debt amounted to 153.5 billion rubles).

In addition, Russian Post is asking to soften regulatory conditions, in particular to allow the company to close unprofitable sites and reduce the frequency of mail delivery. In addition, introduce an infrastructure payment from the largest e-commerce platforms in the amount of 0.5% of turnover.

According to a federal official taking part in meetings to resolve Russian Post problems, everyone is now waiting for the results of the audit. At recent meetings of the board of directors, the issue of allocating funds to the company from the National Welfare Fund was not discussed. But the authorities will definitely not make any decisions on finances until they see the results of the audit,” said RBC’s interlocutor.

In a development scenario with government support, the company plans to receive a net profit of 6 billion rubles. in 2024 and 33 billion rubles. in 2025. Without government support, Russian Post will remain unprofitable until the end of 2025.

Russian Post has not been funded by the state since 2014. At a meeting of the Federation Council on September 25, Speaker of the Chamber Valentina Matvienko stated, that Russian Post has a growing financial hole and “the situation urgently needs to be corrected.” She wondered if there were “other processes going on” that “need to be corrected with the participation of law enforcement agencies or others.” In response to this, General Director of Russian Post Mikhail Volkov emphasizedthat the company has reduced its operating loss by three times over the past six months, but the situation “remains tense.”

About mass layoffs from Russian Post this summer – in the material “Russian Post did not deliver salaries”.

Alexandra Goroshilova