The Danish state last year gave DKK 400 million to Greenland Airports International as a construction grant.
The money was supposed to help finance the construction of the airport in Ilulissat, and the company was not supposed to pay it back.
The Danish state last year gave DKK 400 million to Greenland Airports International as a construction grant.
The money was supposed to help finance the construction of the airport in Ilulissat, and the company was not supposed to pay it back.
But in Greenland Airports’ consolidated accounts for 2025, the gift from the state was entered under a line for debt in the so-called cash flow statement.
That part of the accounts gave the impression that the group had taken on 400 million more in debt than it actually had – and two main figures in the annual report ended up hitting 400 million beyond the reality.
How could that happen?
– This has happened because some numbers are incorrectly linked in an Excel sheet. But of course a mistake like that must not happen, says finance and economic director Per Stjærnholm Trærup to Sermitsiaq.
Despite the size of the amount, neither the management, the board nor the auditor caught the error in the annual report, which was therefore approved at the general meeting on 19 June 2026.
The error only came to the company’s knowledge after Sermitsiaq found it, confirms the finance director.
– I’ve hit myself in the head that I haven’t seen it, because it should be an amount to spot. It’s hard to say why you don’t discover anything. But it must have gone too fast, and then I didn’t check that the amount was in the right place, says Per Stjærnholm Trærup.
Grants ended up among the borrowed money
The error of 400 million is found, as I said, in the part of the group’s annual report that calculates the cash flows – also called cash flow.
The cash flow statement must show how money has flowed in and out of the group during the year, and whether the cash flows are linked to operations, investments or financing.
In the annual report, the 400 million that the company received had no independent line. The absence of the line helped lead Sermitsiaq down the path of error.
It turned out that the money had been put together with borrowed money under the item “Acquisition of long-term debt”, which was calculated to total DKK 1.16 billion.
With this, Greenland Airports mixed two different types of amounts together on the same line: a loan, which the company must pay back, and a subsidy, which the company can keep.
At the same time, the 400 million was placed in the wrong part of the calculation. They came under flows from financing activity, but must be moved to investment activity.
Amounts are still included in the accounts
The error is therefore about the 400 million being misplaced and appearing misleadingly in the accounts – and thus towards the owner and the rest of the public.
There is thus no question that money has disappeared, or that Greenland Airports has now become poorer than before. This is a classification error without significance for the company’s income statement, balance sheet or equity, the company and Greenland’s Audit Office emphasize.
– We have assessed that it is not so serious that we want to send out a new account. But we will correct the figures in the annual report next year, says Per Stjærnholm Trærup.
Greenland Airports has sent Sermitsiaq a copy of its planned correction. It withdraws the DKK 400 million from the loan line, places it on its own line, and inserts the line in the correct place in the accounts.
An additional, related and also very large error must also be corrected, which Sermitsiaq elaborates on in a further article.
Greenland Airports is now looking to avoid similar problems in the future, promises Per Stjærnholm Trærup.
– We are going through our entire set-up to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Do you have sufficient competence and capacity in your organization to do it well enough, or is more needed?
– We have to assess that. But as you can see, we are looking for a senior financial controller, so hopefully we will soon be strengthened in this area, says the finance director.
