Sukhoi's civil aircraft division is confident of securing funding to address its liabilities, after auditors raised concerns about the airframer's financial position in an interim statement.

The condensed financial statement, written to international accounting standards, covers the six months to 30 June 2012 and was approved on 9 November.

It shows that the airframer made an operating loss of $45 million for the first half. This included an $8.4 million impairment on several early-configuration Superjet 100s delivered on lease to Aeroflot, which will be returned to Sukhoi for resale.

Heavy interest expenses pushed the net loss to $100 million, six times the previous year's figure of $17 million.

Independent auditor KPMG points out that the company's current liabilities exceed its current assets by more than $710 million, and notes that this situation indicates a "material uncertainty" that might cast "significant doubt" over the company's ability to continue as a going concern.

Sukhoi says this imbalance arose mainly through the reclassification, on the balance sheet, of certain debts as current liabilities.

It says that, at the balance sheet date, it was "in breach" of certain financial covenants relating to long-term borrowing facilities from banks including the EBRD, West LB and VTB.

But it says it has obtained a waiver from the EBRD for 2012 and "is negotiating" a waiver for 2013, which it expects to receive before the end of this year.

Sukhoi adds that it expects to cover the "liquidity gap" with a long-term loan from Russian bank VEB amounting to $1 billion. It adds that it believes financial support from the Russian federal government, as well as the company's other resources, will be "sufficient" to meet obligations as they become due.

In a Russian statement on its performance over the first nine months of 2012, Sukhoi's civil aircraft division says it doubled sales revenue through selling six Superjet 100s compared with three by the same point in 2011.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news