 Eurotunnel's performance never justified early high hopes |
The plight of indebted Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel has become more acute, with the news that sales this year are on the slide. During the first three months of 2004 - before April's boardroom coup led by rebel shareholders - revenues fell 5% to 125m euros (�82m; $149m).
Eurotunnel's only positive news was truck traffic, which rose 7%.
The company's consistently below-par performance has been the main cause of discontent about the firm's old board.
New managers have only a limited time to turn Eurotunnel's fortunes around.
Missing targets
Investors also want state help, but the UK and French governments have so far refused.
French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien has so far shown little enthusiasm for dipping into the public purse, arguing that an Anglo-French treaty forbids state subsidies.
But without help, the company needs a dramatic improvement in its trading to stabilise its finances.
Eurotunnel never met the ambitious targets set when the project was financed in the late 1980s.
Its debts are currently just over �6bn, and faces a credit crunch in 2006 when repayments on the debt coincide with the end of an agreeement which guarantees minimum revenues from rail operators.
One-Minute World News 
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