Teollisuusliitto threatens with its money – Collected a huge fortune of around one billion euros – 2024-03-16 17:19:24

To the market. The chairman of Teollisuusliito Riku Aalto, the chairman of SAK Jarkko Eloranta, the chairman of STTK Antti Palola took part in the demonstration in Senatintor at the beginning of February. KIMMO HAAPALA

The two-week political strikes in Finland are affecting heavy industry, port cargo traffic and rail freight traffic.

According to Teollisuusliitto, which is part of the strike front, there is no shortage of money and there are enough funds for strike compensation for a long industrial struggle.

– Teollisuusliitto’s strike fund will endure several months of large-scale industrial shutdown, it was reported last week on Teollisuusliitto’s website.

– The assets of Teollisuusliitto’s members have been managed in such a way that the assets of the association have grown significantly.

Talouselämä analyzed the assets of Teollisuusliitto from its latest available financial statements, which are from the financial year 2022.

– The strike fund is not a single item on the balance sheet, but in practice consists of liquid assets and investments that can be realized if necessary, Alma Media analyst Ari Rajala tells.

Fair value higher

The 2022 balance sheet had liquid cash assets of 33.4 million euros and, in addition, securities quoted in investments worth 785.2 million euros, or more than 800 million euros.

– Of course, you can’t use all of that, because the actual operation has been in deficit every year and the deficits have been patched up with investment income, Rajala says.

The deficit of Teollisuusliitto’s actual operations was 24.7 million euros in 2022, 6.5 million euros in 2021 and 14.7 million euros in 2020.

In addition, the association has real estate and other shares with a book value of EUR 78.4 million, but the fair value is probably clearly higher.

– However, these can hardly be included in the strike fund.

According to Rajala, the value of the union’s assets far exceeds its accounting value. The total amount of the balance sheet, i.e. the book value of the assets, was EUR 677.4 million. If you add EUR 237.9 million to the difference between the book value and the market value of the securities, it becomes EUR 915.3 million.

– In addition, the value of the other shares probably owned is higher than the book value, so the value of the assets may well reach one billion euros.

Read also about Talouselämä:

Huge sums tax-free

According to Teollisuusliitto, around 4,000 industrial workers are affected by the strikes. The union has announced that its strike allowance is 166 euros per strike day and compensation is paid for seven days a week. The share paid to the member is EUR 98.50 per strike day after taxes.

If compensation were paid to 4,000 employees, the bill for the two-week strike would total around 9.3 million euros.

A significant portion of Teollisuusliito’s assets consists of an apartment investment company Kojamon of shares, of which the union currently owns 6.39 percent and is the company’s fourth largest owner.

Teollisuusliitto’s Kojamo shares were worth around EUR 175 million at Monday’s closing price. In the past, the union’s ownership in Kojamo was larger, but it sold 8.3 million Kojamo shares in 2021, thus receiving sales income of 166 million euros.

Teollisuusliitto does not pay any taxes on the returns on its investments, because it is considered a public benefit entity.

The story was originally published in Talouselämä magazine.