Tusk's holding recorded losses for the fourth time. What's wrong with state-owned companies?
Recently, many presidents and board members of state-owned listed companies have been replaced. Wojciech Balczun, the Minister of State Assets, operates the personnel broom. Looking at the companies' recent results, the changes seem justified, knowing that the losses are not only the fault of the management board's actions, but also of independent circumstances. But there were also obvious errors of omission, more on that later.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, the sum of the results of 19 listed companies controlled by the State Treasury turned out to be a loss, which amounted to PLN 1 billion 42 million. And this is not the first quarter in the red. Since 2024, i.e. since the replacement of the previous government's managers with new ones, we have already counted four such managers. Out of eight possible. This means that half of the management time of managers appointed by the current government ended in losses.
The loss for the last quarter of 2025 disappointed market analysts, who have another argument that estimating the results of state-owned entities is burdened with a very high dose of risk. The total result for the fourth quarter turned out by 16 percent lower than forecast by analysts polled by PAP. As we calculated, in the eight quarters until the end of 2025, state-owned companies disappointed the market as many as six times.
In fact, we should also include the fourth quarter of 2023 in these statistics, because the provisions created in financial reports, which affected net results in this period, resulted from the decisions of the new management boards. Then there was a minus as much as PLN 8.8 billion. This is a regular practice after taking over government and changing presidents in state-owned entities. The new presidents are cleaning up the situation by making large write-offs after testing the value of the companies' assets.
Which companies contributed most to Tuska Holding's loss at the end of last year? All results are presented in the table at the bottom of the page.
Orlen is at a huge loss. But there will be a record dividend
Orlen suffered the largest loss among state-owned companies. The net result of the Orlen Group in the fourth quarter of 2025 amounted to as much as minus PLN 5.5 billion. This is a record quarterly loss in the history of the concern, which exceeded the one from the second quarter of 2014 (-PLN 5.2 billion), when Orlen made write-offs for the refinery in Mažeikiai, Lithuania, and assets in the Czech Republic. The entire year 2025 ended with a profit of PLN 2.6 billion.
Interestingly, despite the highest quarterly net loss in history, Orlen intends to pay shareholders the highest dividend in history. Specifically, PLN 8 per share, i.e. PLN 9.3 billion, will go to shareholders and the dividend tax. In the case of Orlen, the dividend will be higher than the net profit for the second year in a row. The Minister of Finance should be pleased, because a large amount will go to the state budget, which holds almost half of the company's shares, and the dividend tax revenue will be high.
In his commentary on the results, President Ireneusz Fąfara emphasized that last year's results are still burdened by impairment losses resulting from mistakes made by his predecessors, i.e. Daniel Obajtek. “They cost us PLN 16 billion on balance sheet [w skali dwóch lat]” – said the president of Orlen.
Last year write-offs amounted to PLN 8.3 billionincluding PLN 6.8 billion in the Czech Unipetrol Group, PLN 583 million in Orlen alone, PLN 425 million in Anwil, and PLN 436 million in Petrobaltic. In the case of Unipetrol, write-offs mainly concerned the petrochemical part, which suffers from high gas prices. High reserves were also established in Energa (PLN 544 million) for the potential obligation to transfer funds to the Price Difference Payment Fund account.
Grupa Azoty is scraping the bottom
The state-owned company with the second largest loss in Q4 2025 is Grupa Azoty. Loss in the last three months of last year. amounted to PLN 4.2 billion and this is the 14th consecutive quarter of losses. In these fourteen quarters, Grupa Azoty lost a total of PLN 10.5 billion.
Donald Tusk's government fought a great and successful battle for this company in 2012, so that it would not be taken over by the Russian investor Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor. His company, Acron, offered up to PLN 45 per share. Currently it is below PLN 19.
However, high gas prices and competition from cheap fertilizers (on cheap gas) from the East as well as the investment in GA Polyolefins have undermined Azoty's liquidity situation in the last four years. The investment in Polyolefins cost Azoty over PLN 7 billion. Now it is being sold to Orlen for PLN 1.2 billion – the preliminary agreement has already been signed. Azoty lacks funds for full start-up and financing of materials.
Last year, Grupa Azoty cut investments by 60 percent, 10 percent exempted crew, but interestingly, the average salary increased by 7%. However, this could have resulted from layoffs among employees earning less. The company's hope is to alleviate the situation in Iran and the resulting decline in gas prices, the basic raw material for the production of fertilizers.
Errors of omission at JSW
The third highest loss in the fourth quarter was the result of Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa. The loss amounted to as much as PLN 3.4 billion at the consolidated level. This is not a negative record for the company, because it was set in the second quarter of 2024 (-PLN 6 billion). The reason is that the prices of coking coal and coke are too low considering the extraction costs.
However, the above-mentioned errors of omission by the management board were also important here. Seeing the market situation with coking coal prices, the management board led by Ryszard Janta (dismissed on October 3 last year) chose a strategy of waiting it out and using the reserves set aside in the “fat years”, only cutting investments. Employment costs are key in the company, and this topic was practically not touched upon until the reserves were exhausted.
Employment costs last year decreased, but only by 3.8%. up to PLN 7 billion. Employment decreased by 2.5%. The average salary decreased by 1.2%. up to 18.6 thousand PLN gross.
Positives in Tuska Holding
The three above-mentioned companies influence the image of the entire Tuska Holding. However, it is not that there is nothing positive to say about the other companies. And so the KGHM Group thanks to high prices of gold, silver and copper she earned 72 percent. more than a year earlier. The profits of two energy companies increased significantly: PGE (+153% yoy), Energa (+112% yoy), loss by 54%. Enea decreased year on year. But Tauron had a profit of 48%. lower year-on-year.
Banks brought a lot of good to their shareholders in Q4 2025. Alior Bank and exceeded the forecasts of analysts polled by PAP by as much as 15 percent, i.e. he earned PLN 90 million more than forecast.
The second bank from the PZU Group, i.e Bank Pekao SA exceeded the net result from the previous year by 13 percent, and analysts' forecasts by 9.5%, i.e. by PLN 158 million.
Finally, the largest bank in Poland PKO BP had a profit of 11%. higher year on yearand by 7 percent beat analysts' forecasts.
Banks will probably not be doing so well in the future, because interest rates dropped last year and this year, and with it interest margins. Good loan repayment rates may not be maintained due to rising unemployment and companies' problems with fuel prices.
Private companies did not disappoint
So much for state-owned companies. Let's take a look at how companies without controlling state participation fared in the same geopolitical circumstances. We looked at the 19 largest of them to ensure an equal number with state-owned ones.
And there were problems here too, as profits fell by 4.8% year on year. However, compared to analysts' forecasts, there is an increase of 12 percent, so the market was surprised, but not negatively.
The biggest positive surprises here came from two banks: ING BSK and BNP Paribas BPwhich beat net profit forecasts by over 15 percent In the case of ING, however, it was an increase in profit of only 5%. year to year, but already in BNP Paribas BP – by as much as 74%.
Up by as much as 59%. y/y and by 23 percent however, net profits exceeded forecasts. Its turnover also increased by 14%. rdr. In a press release, the company announced the success of LPP's new strategy, focused, among others, on: on the dynamic scaling of the Sinsay brand. Last year, the Sinsay brand chain exceeded 2,300 stores, although – as LPP informs in a press release – for 80 percent sales are handled by the mobile application.
However, there were also some stumbles among private individuals. Cyfrowy Polsat and Polkomtel (Polsat Plus Group) recorded jointly PLN 2 billion 602 million net loss in 2025 compared to PLN 777 million profit a year earlier. The new management is currently taking steps to increase efficiency. The weaker period is the result of ownership changes in the Solorz family.
Author: Jacek Frączyk, editor of Business Insider Polska
