financial valuations of
PSO is futile…
Pakistan’s biggest petroleum
handler, Pakistan State Oil (PSO) is
on the verge of financial collapse since its outstanding dues
from various ‘energy sector’ entities
has reached to the extent of Rs
180bn (which is highest
in 4‐years). It seems that no
bailing out is forth coming from ministry of finance
(MoF). Actual cash flows
of the
entity have gone negative due to
incidence of more short term loans to keep the daily operations afloat. It is imperative that the calculation of DCF value of such an
entity may be a
futile exercise
and thus tantamount to mislead investors.
Liabilities swelling…
When PSO is not
receiving due payments,
it is hard for their treasury to arrange payments for refineries. Right now PSO has to
pay
Rs172bn of many companies that also include international
principals thus painting a negative image
outside.
PSOs’ total payables to local refineries have reached Rs
75bn of which it has to
pay Rs
35.7 to unlisted
Pak‐Arab Refinery Limited
(PARCO),Rs 10 bn to Pakistan Refinery
Limited (PRL), Rs
8bn to National Refinary Limited
(NRL) , Rs 18 billion to Attock
Refinery (ATRL), Rs 2 bn BYCO petroleum
etc.
List of defaulters
The power sector is a major defaulter
of PSO, which owes Rs 153bn such as poorly managed state run WAPDA that owes
Rs 39bn and independent power producers such as
HUBCO that owes Rs
79bn & KAPCO
that owes Rs 35bn. Public
utility KESC also owes
4.55bn. Among all
these companies that owe, it
is WAPDA which is responsible for this
awful crisis since it is the
main
culprit behind whole crisis.
Had WAPDA being managed
properly and paid to power
entities, this crisis of huge proportions could not
have happened.
Some of the other receivables include Rs 1.3bn
over price differential claim
(PDC) on
HSD &
Rs 3bn on HSFO.
Some likely repercussions…
We see this
receivable to be ballooned since government is entangled in multiple crises
ranging from fiscal constraints to political fallout. It is imperative that
investors should see real
worth of such companies that used to
be cash rich till 2007‐8 but since
trapped into vicious cycle of
‘circular debt’. The
non resolution of issues
means that investors should wait while making an entry into
the
script. Couple of months
back there was some
resolution coming wherein banks
were about to bailout energy companies
from this ‘circular debt’; however,
no solution is inside.
Here we prefer Attock
Petroleum (APL), a small Attock Group oil handler, over PSO. Wherein we consider SHEL as a
weak business model owing to their
exposure in depleting CNG business.
Comments