Motor Oil managing director Yannis Vardinoyannis: Our profits were derived from exports; “surplus profits” an erroneous term

Motor Oil Vice Chairman and Managing Director Yannis Vardinoyannis on Wednesday responded directly to shareholders’ questions over the issue of an extraordinary tax on profits posted during the energy crisis by refinery groups and electricity providers in the country, a measure enacted by the Mitsotakis government, taking umbrage to the term “surplus or excess profits”.

“The profits that were taxed were Motor Oil’s. It’s a mistake to use the term surplus profits. The correct term is windfall profits…Europe decided to tax these profits, which represent 40 percent to 45 percent of total profits; high profitability is not profiteering. Our profits came from exports, 85 percent of our sales come from exports. These were profits made outside the EU,” Vardinoyannis underlined, while adding about the extraordinary tax: “We brought the profits to Greece.

He also added that Motor Oil’s proposal to the government was to return a portion of the profits in a “targeted manner…but not in the manner in which it was conducted.”

The major Motor Oil shareholder repeated that windfall profits are not profiteering.

“It’s wrong for someone to suddenly wake up and cut profits. During the coronavirus (pandemic) no one came to talk to us about the profits we lost. If politicians want, they should use another term, surplus profits are wrong. We serve Greece.”

The same general assembly of shareholders approved the distribution of a 1.60-euro dividend per share.