Greenland Airports misreported $61 million state grant as debt

Greenland Airports International listed a $61 million (400 million kroner) grant from the Danish state as borrowed money in its 2025 annual report, the Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq reported on Thursday. The error went unnoticed by the company’s management, board and auditor until Sermitsiaq found it.

Greenland Airports International builds and operates the international airports in Nuuk and Ilulissat, and is owned two-thirds by the Greenlandic government and one-third by the Danish state.

The grant, given last year to help finance construction of the new Atlantic airport in Ilulissat, does not have to be repaid. But in the group’s cash flow statement it was folded into the line “proceeds from long-term borrowing,” which totalled $176 million (1.16 billion kroner), and placed under financing activities rather than investing activities. The effect was to make it appear the company had taken on $61 million more in debt than it actually had, and two key figures in the report were off by that amount.

The annual report was approved at the company’s general meeting on June 19.

Chief financial officer Per Stjærnholm Trærup told Sermitsiaq the mistake came from figures being linked incorrectly in an Excel spreadsheet.

“I’ve been kicking myself over not having seen it, because it ought to be an amount you’d notice,” he said. “It must have gone too fast, and then I didn’t check that the amount was in the right place.”

Both the company and its auditor, Grønlands Revision, stress that the error is one of classification only and does not affect the income statement, balance sheet or equity. No money is missing.

Greenland Airports does not plan to reissue the 2025 accounts, but will correct the figures in next year’s annual report, giving the grant its own line under investing activities. Sermitsiaq reports that a second, related and similarly large error also needs correcting, which it says it will detail in a separate article.

Trærup said the company is reviewing its entire accounting setup and is recruiting a senior financial controller to strengthen its finance function.

The disclosure comes as Greenland Airports faces an arbitration case brought by a contractor, with a claim put at $39 million (258 million kroner).