Rafako’s management board has decided to immediately file a motion to declare bankruptcy. The company announced it is permanently unable to pay its obligations and has thus filed the motion, which it said is the only way to best protect the interests of Rafako as well as its creditors, shareholders and employees.
The company will provide additional information about the submission of the application in a separate announcement, Salon 24 reports.
The company did say it failed to reach an agreement with its creditors that would allow Rafako to regain the ability to obtain external financing for the implementation of future orders.
At the end of December 2023, the Ministry of State Assets (MAP) reported that the then head of MAP, current MEP Borys Budka, had talked with the shareholders and creditors of Rafako about the future of the company. Budka said that, within the scope of his powers, he would try to help save Rafako, and representatives from PFR TFI, the Industrial Development Agency, the Ministry of Development and Technology, PZU, PKO BP, mBank, and BGK participated in the talks.
Rafako was already facing bankruptcy back in January 2023. At that time, it announced its intention to file after the state-controlled Tauron put in a claim for 1.3 billion zloty ($298 million) over a power plant built by Rafako that Tauron said was defective. That dispute was reportedly resolved in April of that year, but financial issues clearly followed the Polish manufacturer for the energy, heating and oil and gas sectors.
At that time, back when the Tauron situation hit, opposition leader Tusk had also said “Rafako must be saved.”
“There is no excuse. Rafako must be saved. I cannot imagine that the effect of the actions of the authorities and a large state-owned company would be the destruction of another Polish company,” said Tusk in January 2023, when he talked to the company’s employees in Racibórz.
“The government is not doing you any favors. It breaks my heart that the Germans will freely enter here with their production,” he added. This was an odd statement, as Tusk’s government seems to have catered to Berlin’s hands ever since it took office.
“When I heard Prime Minister Morawiecki yesterday that it takes two to tango, that one has to give in to the other, I can only tell you one thing, decisions are needed here,” Tusk said, adding that they don’t stand much of a chance in a clash with a state behemoth like Tauron.
“Immediate decisions are needed to make Tauron aware that its task is not to destroy Rafako, but that the government and state-owned companies are there to support Polish companies and Polish industry, not to destroy them,” he had said at the time.
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