The living groupcomposed of nearly 200 franchised dental clinics, obtained in 2020 profit of 80.22 million euros.
Despite this, received public assistance from SEPI (State Company of Industrial Holdings), a state agency that Safe several strategic companies with aid of several million euros after the crisis caused by Covid-19. In total, he obtained an injection of 40 million euros, which he promised to return.
In 2019, the year before the arrival of the Covid pandemic in Spain, Vivanta recorded losses of more than 20 million euros. Specifically, 20,127,810 euros. This is indicated in the group’s accounts for the year 2020, to which EL ESPAÑOL-Invertia has had access.
The net turnover for the year 2020 (18.9 million euros) is also higher than that of 2019 (18.2 million).
Vivanta has chosen to apply for this public aid from SEPI in 2021. But its accounts for the year 2020 already confirm that the Group then entrusted its viability to “mechanisms of access to financing facilitated by the Spanish government”.
“Given the cash position of the Company and its subsidiaries to date and the uncertainty linked to this health crisis, the Vivanta Group will need additional financing which, given the complexity of the situation and of its rapid evolution, it is not possible to estimate with precision. reliable”, we read in the document consulted by this newspaper.
“Although company executives [Vivanta] They believe that the mechanisms for accessing finance facilitated by the Spanish government will considerably facilitate their access for the amount and the time horizon required,” he continues.
To finish, last June 27, the Council of Ministers approved this injection of funds of 40 million euros. Sources close to the operation confirm to EL ESPAÑOL-Invertia that a large part of the 80 million profits in 2020 are due to the capitalization of shareholder debt and the conversion into equity loans.
ERTE and collective dismissal
The group closed clinics from Wednesday, March 18, 2020, but maintained minimal services for clinical emergencies. Establishments reopened throughout May, subject to successive waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Throughout 2020, Vivanta has undertaken an ERTE due to force majeure —affected 112 employees—, a cash and cost control plan to reduce non-essential expenses. And on December 22 of that same year, he undertook a collective dismissal which affected 278 employees, a process which ended in March 2021.
This rescue of Grupo Vivanta stirred up certain sectors of the dental field. The doctor Óscar Castro Reino, President of the General Council of Dentists, expressed his “total rejection” of the aid granted to Vivanta, which he considered “arbitrary” and contrary to the principle of equity. And he remembered that the band barely reached 200 dental clinics of more than 23,500 in Spain.
On the other hand, the SEPI, dependent on the government, estimated that the Vivanta group fulfilled the conditions to receive this injection of 40 million public euros.
The decree who regulates this economic aid fund indicates that “aims to compensate for the impact of the health emergency on the balance sheet of solvent companies deemed strategic for the national or regional productive and economic fabric”, both for its social impact and for its relevance, among others, in the fields of health, infrastructure or communication or their contribution to the proper functioning of the markets, “when the credit or liquidity support measures have not been sufficient to ensure the maintenance of their activity”.
Grupo Vivanta, formerly known as Franquicia Galeno SL, is the result of the acquisition, in 2017, of six dental companies by Portobello Capital, along with their brands and clinics. It is Unidenticalto which the franchisee belonged, laser 2000, Plenid, Fore-Tooth, Dental Group Clinic Dr. Senís there Anaga Dental. In total, it has acquired some 300 establishments throughout Spain. Today, the bottom of capital investment is a minority shareholder.