Parmalat debt reaches €14.3bn

PARMALAT’S debt reached €14.3 billion at the end of September, almost eight times the amount reported by the dairy company’s previous management before it went bankrupt.

Italy’s biggest food company had “negligible’ assets in the first nine months of 2003, Parmalat said in a statement, citing the preliminary findings of a review undertaken by its new auditors, PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Operating profit was €121 million, less than a fifth of what Parmalat reported.