Parmalat hidden debts by almost 16 billion euros

The total debt of the bankrupt Italian company Parmalat is $ 18 billion, and almost 16 billion of this amount is obligated that it has not previously reported, writes The Wall Street Journal .

The investigation established that in the financial reports the company arrived 5 times compared to their real level. This is evidenced by the preliminary report of the auditor PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The "weak link" were banks that collaborated with Parmalat. It was with their help that the company's management managed to masterfully hide fraud. Former financial director of Parmalat Fausto Ton, one of the accused in the case, said that they could not help but know about fraud.

Until mid-2003, external auditors did not see any signs of Parmalat’s financial unhealthy, the company took loans from banks in Italy and abroad and issued bonds to Wall Street, recalls Interfax.

But then the scandal erupted. According to the testimony of the company's leaders, various frauds lasted in Parmalat for at least 10 years, but its financial problems have aggravated in the last three years.

According to auditors, the real Parmalat revenue for 9 months of last year was 4 billion euros, and not declared 5.4 billion. The profit amounted to actually 121 million euros, while the company reported about 651 million.

The Financial Times previously reported that the value of the company's production assets can be only 1-2 billion euros.

As expected, the Parmalat restructuring plan will be presented to creditors by mid -March. The exit from the crisis is difficult that the investigation is forced to restore the financial documentation of the concern, some of which was destroyed by the direction of the former financial director of Fausto Ton.