Amancio Ortega pandemic impact financial losses: Pontegadea, his investment vehicle, earns 666 million in 2020, 62% less - The richest man in Spain has also not been able to ignore the harmful economic impact arising from the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020 Amancio Ortega's investment arm, the Pontegadea group, earned 666 million.

Amancio Ortega has emerged this year from the top 10 of the richest Forbes worldwide, falling to the eleventh place after the strong impact caused by the coronavirus on Inditex, which came to present last summer the first losses in its history. Now the figures of Ortega's other empire, real estate, have also transcended, which has obtained a net profit that represents 62.54% less than that reported in 2019. Then, the Pontegadea group billed almost twice as much as in 2020, about 2,261 million.

This is the graphic that Inditex uses to explain how its stores are returning to normal and that reveals how complex the process has been

Last year, the group, which integrates all its properties in the portfolio, its real estate subsidiaries and other financial holdings, entered 1,282 million, 43% less than in 2019, when its profit had grown by 14%. Pontegadea attributes the decrease in revenues to the decrease in the dividend received from Inditex, of 646 million euros last year. A figure that is well below the 1,626 of 2019.

Amancio Ortega pandemic impact financial losses

This decrease is due to the measures taken to mitigate the damage of the pandemic to the accounts of the parent companies of Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka or Pull&Bear, in which Pontegadea owns almost 60% of the shareholding. However, dividend income from its investee companies still accounts for more than half of the Pontegadea Group's turnover: 669 million compared to 613 million from the real estate business.

Its housing portfolio, based on properties located in the premium areas of the main cities of the world, is valued at 14,075 million euros, almost 1,300 million euros less than a year before, when it accounted for 15,163 million euros.

The company, however, has reported in a statement that without counting the currency effect, its real estate portfolio has only lost a small part of its value, which remains the largest Spanish real estate operator, despite being focused on the rental business of large office buildings.

Amancio Ortega pandemic impact financial losses

"Eliminating the currency effect, the decrease in the value of the portfolio is less than 5%, given that the high quality of the assets that compose it has reduced the impact of the pandemic. This currency effect also affects the consolidated figure of income from the real estate business, " the company details in the brief.

Pontegadea Group, which also holds relevant shares in Telxius and Enagás, of 9.99% and 5%, respectively, has reduced its financial debt from 1,091 million in 2019 to 1,022 million in 2020.

At the same time, it accounts for 802 million cash and equivalents, resulting in a net debt of 220 million. This amount is just what Ortega has recently paid for the acquisition of a property in London.

Finally, the balance sheet includes a donation of 163 million euros to the Amancio Ortega Foundation, chaired by him.

Amancio Ortega pandemic impact financial losses

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Unemployment is reduced by 110,100 people and employment grows by 464,900 workers in the second quarter: the EPA finds that there are a million more jobs than 12 months ago

The labour market continues to show positive figures mid - year and official figures reflect a recovery in employment and occupation levels accompanied by a gradual reduction in unemployment, following the trend of the first 3 months of 2021 and the last quarter of last year.

Thus, the economically Active Population Survey for the second quarter just released by the National Institute of Statistics shows that unemployment has been reduced in 110.100 people, up to a total of 3.543.800 unemployed, which is the biggest fall since the period between April and June 2019 and reduces the rate of unemployment to 15,26%, 7 tenths less than in the previous quarter and almost a percentage point less than at the end of 2020.

Meanwhile, Social Security affiliation registered an increase of 464,900 workers, to a total of 19,671,700 members, at a level "similar to that of the first quarter of 2020", just before the outbreak of the pandemic, according to the Ministry of Economy, which coincides with the forecasts of the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, who said that since February 800,000 Social Security members had recovered.

However, the level affiliated to the Social Security is still around 325.000 busy behind the records of the end of 2019, despite the fact that the INE notes that in the past 12 months have created a total of 1.06 million jobs, a 5,72% more than in the second quarter of 2020, in which the impact of the coronavirus dragged to the figures of occupation to their lowest registers during the pandemic.

For its part, the fall in unemployment is 3% below the previous quarter and the total number of unemployed is 5.2% higher than 12 months ago, as reflected in the graph above, which shows how the unemployment has risen strongly in the last 12 months in relation to the previous year, despite the fact that the uptick in year-on-year in the second quarter is a little more than half of the experienced in the first and just over one-third of the registered by the close of 2020.

For communities, the unemployment rate was reduced compared with the previous quarter in 12 of them, also in Ceuta and Melilla, Murcia, Catalonia and Andalusia, registering the biggest drop-offs, with between 22,000 and 19.800 unemployed less, while unemployment remained flat in the Community of Madrid in the first quarter and increased 4 autonomy, the Valencian Community, with 15.600 unemployed, Cantabria, with 2,200 more, Castile and León, with 800 more and La Rioja, with 100 more.

In contrast, only 5 communities closed the second quarter with fewer unemployed than in the same period of the previous year, led by Murcia, with 11.100 unemployed less than between April and June 2020, while the other recorded a higher unemployment than 12 months ago, especially Andalusia, with 79.700 unemployed, the Canary islands, with 45.900 more, and Comunitat Valenciana, with nearly 18,700 people more than in the second quarter of last year.

As for the occupation, its increase compared to the previous quarter is widespread in all the autonomies, led by Andalusia, with 102,400 more members, the Balearic Islands, with 60,300 more, and the Valencia Community, with 55,100 more. All the communities also improve compared to the second quarter of 2020, with Andalusia registering 245,700 more occupied, Catalonia, with 189,600 more, and the Community of Madrid, with 161,500 more.

The increase in employment has also been extended to all sectors, with 365.700 occupied more in services than in the previous quarter, 63.100 more in construction, a 23,000 more in industry and 13.100 more in agriculture, while, compared with 12 months ago, the service sector has added 838.100 active workers, the construction 155.800, 47.700 more in agriculture and 22,900 more in industry.

The general improvement in employment is also recorded in the unemployment data of each sector of activity, with unemployment falls in all of them, led by services, which register 306,200 unemployed less than between January and March, while in industry 43,300 unemployed less, in construction there are 35,500 less and in agriculture there are 21,900 unemployed workers less than 3 months ago.

By sex, the number of unemployed workers fell by 49,400, to a total of 1.9 million unemployed, which places the female unemployment rate at 17.36%, 7 tenths less than the previous quarter, while the number of unemployed men fell by 60,700 workers between April and June, to a total of 1.6 million unemployed, which places the male unemployment at 13.39%, 6 tenths less than between January and March.

By age group, unemployment fell with respect to the previous quarter only among workers aged 25 to 54, with 168,000 fewer unemployed, while it increased by 46,300 in the group under 25 and by 11,600 among those over 55. Compared to the previous year, unemployment followed a similar trend, falling by 1,300 people in the 25-54 age group, and growing in others, especially among those over 55, with 90,200 more unemployed.

With regard to the active population, it has grown by 354,800 people between April and June, raising the activity rate to 58.58% and placing the total of assets at 23.2 million people, which means 1.2 million more active workers than 12 months ago and 180,000 more compared to the second quarter of 2019, thus improving the prepandemia figures.

Meanwhile, the busy and absent from work in the reference week have been reduced by nearly half a million workers over the previous quarter, to a total of 1.5 million, a drop that the INE attributed "to the lower incidence of the holidays, and the reduction of sickness absence and record temporal regulation of employment (ERTE) and partial arrest for technical or economic reasons," which implies an increase of 7.7% in the number of hours worked