Last Monday, the plenary session of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona took stock of the economic legacy of Eines de País in his four years at the head of the institution. During his time, the chamber accumulated four million euros in losses and suffered a significant reduction in treasury, according to several members of the plenary session based on the documentation provided at the meeting.
The Chamber remains a solvent institution, but the new government team, led by Josep Santacreu, has been forced to resort to bank financing to continue with normal operations, say several members of the plenary session.
Sources from Eines de País defended yesterday that his management allowed the asset value to increase and pointed out that his mandate was focused on helping companies during the Covid pandemic. Furthermore, they remember that a positive operating result was always achieved and that the initial forecasts were even improved.
The chamber institution closed last year, the last one with the pro-independence list at the helm, with losses of 2.5 million. The accounts approved in plenary reflect a budget deviation of 1.8 million. This is caused by errors in the contracting estimates for the digital kit and by the losses caused by two star measures of the previous mandate: the Blockchain Center of Catalonia and Tech Talent (a project that did not materialize).
To this figure, we must also add an extraordinary expense of 681,564 euros for the initial work to move the organization to a new headquarters at 22@ in Poblenou. Regarding the future of this project, great uncertainty reigns in the institution.
During his mandate, Eines de País justified the red numbers by pointing out that the entity was focused on helping companies overcome the pandemic. Yesterday it was not possible to contact the main people responsible for the list.
The most delicate situation is in the treasury, which stood at 2.6 million at the end of 2023. The figure is 64% lower than a year before and represents a decrease of 78% since 2019, the last year with Miquel Valls at the head of the institution. The aforementioned members of the plenary session indicated that the drastic reduction is due to the fact that Eines de País paid for the renovation of the Diagonal headquarters with treasury instead of using leverage.
The renovation of the building has involved an expense of 7.9 million. However, this is not complete. In this week's plenary session, the current government team managed to approve the remodeling of the two remaining underground floors. The budget to undertake the work is close to one million.
The Chamber's own activity requires intensive use of the treasury. Santacreu's team has encountered cash tensions and has had to increase its leverage. The gross debt has gone from 4.6 million euros to 9.6 million. Of these, 5.5 million are long-term loans and 4.1 million are short-term.
During the four years of Eines de País, own funds have been reduced by 14.5%, to 36.5 million. In addition to the losses, the auditors forced the Chamber to make an accounting adjustment of the value of the real estate assets.
