Polish debt collector Kruk posts lower Q2 net profit on tax, Romania weakness
Polish debt collector Kruk posts lower Q2 net profit on tax, Romania weakness Aug 26 (Reuters) - Polish debt collector Kruk KRU.WA posted a 12% year-on-year fall in second-quarter net profit on Wednesday, weighed down by an adverse tax base effect despite strong underlying cash collections and lower financial costs.
The Warsaw-listed company, which buys non-performing portfolios of unsecured retail debt from banks at a steep discount and recovers cash over several years, operates across Poland, Romania, Italy and Spain.
• Cash EBITDA, Kruk's preferred measure of how much cash the company's core operations generate, grew 9% year-on-year to 742 million zlotys ($200 million).
• Second-quarter net profit stood at 292 million zlotys, hit by a 27 million zloty tax charge that replaced a 28 million zloty tax credit recorded a year earlier.
• Net financial costs fell 23% to 81 million zlotys, aided by a foreign-exchange hedging gain.
• Italy drove the strongest growth in debt recoveries, while Romanian revenue dropped sharply on a weaker leu and lower portfolio revaluations.
($1 = 3.6946 zlotys)
(Reporting by Rafal Nowak in Gdansk; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
((RafalWojciech.Nowak@thomsonreuters.com; +48 58 769 66 63;))