The Viability Plan for the period 2020-2025 launched is bearing fruit and allows obtaining positive working capital for the first time in 15 years
The 2020 accounts, presented today to the Plenary Session, confirm that the strategy is correct and create an optimal scenario that predicts better balances for the following years
The 2020 accounts of the Cádiz Free Trade Zone audited by the IGAE confirm the positive results offered in the management balance presented by the State delegate, Fran González, in July 2021, which advanced the financial statements of the Cádiz Consortium. This was made clear in the Plenary Session held today, which ratified these numbers and confirmed that the 2020-25 Viability Plan launched by the current management team is bearing fruit, and positive developments are also expected in the coming years.
In this way, the audited accounts paint a good scenario in which it has been possible to alleviate treasury tensions, restructure debt, clean up the balance sheet, improve the financial situation, recover short-term liquidity and guarantee long-term solvency.
The accounts confirm that the Consortium has achieved financial balance in 2020, with operating results that return to positive numbers, 1.9 million euros, after three consecutive years showing losses, in addition to achieving a positive working capital of 16 million for the first time in 15 years.
In this scenario, the activity of the Business Promotion and Foreign Trade Area has had a great weight, which began to be given a strong boost in 2020, which has allowed sales worth 1.6 million euros in that year to reach 8 million euros in 2021, motivated mainly by the operation of the Janer Shooting Range in San Fernando.
Another fundamental pillar has been the reduction of financial expenses that have affected the final result, reducing the losses of the previous year by more than 50%.
The restructuring of the Reindus debt and the financial debt have allowed the Consortium's total debt to be reduced by 10.3 million euros, which represents 6% compared to 2019. Specifically, the Reindus debt has been reduced by 7.9 million euros and the bank debt by 2.4 million euros, achieving a total interest saving of 1.4 million euros.
All of this confirms the effort and important work to modernize the Institution and strengthen its structures that is being carried out by the current management team of the Cádiz Free Trade Zone and that has made it possible to clean up the accounts and achieve for the first time in 15 years a positive working capital, recovering solvency.
Fran González explained that "the audited accounts for 2020 confirm that we are on the right path. We have righted the ship and are collecting results both from an economic and financial point of view as well as from a commercial point of view and the recovery of productive spaces. We are working to optimize existing resources and implement a new sustainable and committed industrial model."
The delegate added that "in 2020 we provided ourselves with a Viability Plan, our main commitment to responsible and committed management that reverses the drift of the Free Zone, making it viable and solvent. It has been compliance with this self-imposed Plan that has led us to these data that make us proud."
The audited accounts presented today to the Plenary Session show that the Cádiz Institution has taken a good course and has prepared the way for subsequent years to continue on the same positive path. In fact, the balance of the just-ended 2021 offers figures that exceed those of 2020.
In this way, in 2021, 74 lease contracts and 25 purchase and sale contracts have been formalized, which have generated income of 130,000 euros per month in the first case and almost 9 million euros, in the second. This, added to the income from the settlement of the agreement with the Los Barrios City Council, has meant an increase in income in 2021 of 12.8 million euros.
Specifically, in 2020, 27 new lease contracts were signed and in 2021 there were 74; while in sales it has gone from 18 to 25, one of them large with the sale of Tiro Janer worth 7 million.
Furthermore, in 2021 the Consortium has carried out other highly relevant operations such as the concession of an area of the edge of the Ribera dock by the Port Authority of the Bay of Cádiz where the Consortium will house a submarine cable storage and distribution company, the lease of the cross building of the old Altadis to the Civil Guard, the arrival of Sola Rica to the fiscal precinct, the lease of the Las Caballerizas de Jerez building for a medical specialty clinic or the sale to CEEI of the business center warehouse in Rota.
To this we must add that the tax area of Cádiz has operators in continuous growth that demand more space such as Harinera Vilafranquina, Petaca Chico, Cayco, Olivia Energy Group or Cetárea del Sur.
In parallel to this commercial activity and the economic and financial improvement, mention must be made of the Comprehensive Improvement Plan of the Site, whose objective is to optimize and recover productive spaces, and the two great milestones that the Free Trade Zone of Cádiz is developing in the capital and in the Bay of Algeciras: the technological expansion center with the blue economy incubator of the Base Zone, the outer polygon of the Free Zone of Cádiz, and the change to a sustainable industrial model, more responsible and committed to the environment; and the Bahía de Algeciras Tax Precinct, in the municipality of Los Barrios. These two actions will involve the implementation of two centers of economic activity of great importance that will have an impact on the two Bays (that of Cádiz and that of Algeciras) and throughout their area of influence and will allow the Free Trade Zone of Cádiz to obtain new resources.
The 2020 audited accounts reflect that the strategy of the current management team and the Viability Plan implemented are valuable tools to improve and balance the financial situation and general activity of the Cádiz Free Zone and have been applied with agility so that the results begin to be noticed and can be reflected not only in the accounts presented today but also in the provisional ones for the recently completed 2021 and in the economic activity of the entire area of influence of the Consortium, the province of Cádiz, with the consequent contribution to a necessary recovery and job creation.