Eurotunnel accounts cause auditor worries
Eurotunnel's auditors reluctant to sign off accounts due to concerns over its future.
The auditors of Eurotunnel, KPMG and Mazars & Gu‚rard, are reluctant to sign off the channel tunnel operator’s accounts due to concerns over whether it has a ‘viable future’, reports The Guardian.
Link: Market round-up: Eurotunnel, funerals and gold
The struggling company has yet to set a date for its annual results, which the newspaper claimed is because Eurotunnel is struggling to persuade its auditors that it is a ‘going concern’.
Analysts expect a loss for 2004 of around £200m because a surplus on its day-to-day operation is wiped out by interest paid on its £6bn worth of debt.
A spokesman for Eurotunnel said that the ‘going concern’ presumption was nothing new and had been raised by the auditors in the 2003 accounts and the interims.
‘The issue of a going concern depends on the group’s ability to put in a refinancing plan,’ the spokesman said.