Budget Committee Greenlights a Parpública Hearing on the State-Enterprise Profit Collapse — UTAO 6/2026 Reads 2025 Net Profits Down 98% Across 126 SEE Firms, From €480 Million to €11 Million, as PSD Blocks the Miranda Sarmento Summons

Parliament's Budget and Finance Committee approved on Wednesday, 6 May 2026, a hearing of Joaquim Cadete, chairman of the board at Parpública, to clarify the collapse in profitability across the Portuguese state-enterprise sector that the Technical Budget Support Unit (UTAO) flagged in its Report 6/2026. The motion was tabled by Chega and passed with opposition votes plus partial backing from the PSD-led majority. A parallel Chega request to summon Finance Minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento on the same file was rejected, with PSD voting against.

UTAO's read of the 2025 consolidated state-enterprise accounts — the universe known as the Sector Empresarial do Estado (SEE), comprising 126 firms — is stark. Aggregate net profit fell from €480 million in 2024 to €11 million in 2025, a 98% drop. EBITDA fell €455 million. The collapse landed despite a 2.5% revenue increase, equivalent to roughly €542 million, taking total SEE turnover to €22.509 billion. UTAO's framing is the inversion of the headline-revenue line: operating expenses outgrew revenue, producing what the unit describes as a 'structural imbalance' rather than a one-off cost shock.

What's Driving the Drop

The UTAO report does not single out a single firm but the composition of the deterioration is consistent with stress in a small number of capital-intensive SEE names. Energy-cost pass-through across the transport-and-utilities cluster — TAP, IP, Metro de Lisboa, Metro do Porto, EMEF — explains the bulk of the operating-expense growth. The collapse has been compounded by structurally higher diesel and jet-fuel prices through Q1 2026 and by the 2024 wage-recovery cycle that lifted personnel costs across the SEE perimeter.

Parpública's role in the file is the operative lever. The holding company manages the state's portfolio of equity stakes and is the formal supervisor of corporate-governance hygiene across the SEE. The committee will press Cadete on supervisory measures applied or planned, the efficiency strategies being designed inside Parpública, and the calibration of dividend and capital-injection flows to the worst-performing names. The political subtext — left unsaid in the formal motion but pushed in committee — is that the 98% drop puts pressure on the government's privatisation calendar, in which the value of stakes the Treasury is preparing to sell is partly a function of trailing earnings.

The PSD Block on Miranda Sarmento

The decision to block the parallel hearing of the Finance Minister narrows the inquiry to the operating layer rather than the political-supervision layer. PSD's working argument is that ministerial accountability already runs through routine plenary instruments and that a dedicated SEE hearing would amount to politicisation. Opposition parties — PS, Chega, BE, IL and Livre — read the block as a way to keep the Finance Ministry's calibration of dividend payouts and capital injections out of the formal record.

What This Means for Expat Readers

• Privatisation pricing. Foreign-resident investors tracking the TAP file and the broader privatisation calendar should treat the UTAO numbers as a downward signal for headline asset values. The trailing-earnings collapse is the single biggest input the Treasury cannot rewrite.
• Public-service tariffs. When SEE operating losses widen this fast, the policy lever that closes the gap is usually tariff or fare adjustment in the regulated cluster. Watch for tariff filings from IP, Metro and the water utilities through H2 2026.
• Fiscal headroom. A €455 million EBITDA hit at the SEE level matters for the Treasury's consolidated headline. Expect the next CFP and IMF outlook revisions to flag the SEE deterioration as a downside risk to the 2026 surplus target.
• Procurement signal. Suppliers and contractors working with state-owned operators should expect tightening payment terms and renegotiation pressure as Parpública runs the efficiency review the committee is now formalising.