From November 11 to 14, the 16th Corporate Meetings of Corporación Empresarial ONCE (CEOSA) took place at the Confortel Barcelona hotel in Barcelona. Besides discussing the strategic business lines of the corporation and its subsidiary companies, attendees learnt about the Óptima project, to be launched by the services group Alentis, and analysed the concepts of motivation and synergies, and their application in the corporation. The meetings drew about 150 participants, including the corporation’s managerial staff, individual company executives, and technical staff from the Corporate Centre.  
The meetings started with an overview of the current economic situation by CEOSA Executive President José María Arroyo, who described it as marked by sluggish demand and consumption, both of which had dropped to levels that resulted in falling income by over 20% yoy. Financial institutions, he went on to say, have not contributed to bring relief in this scenario: “If there was a liquidity situation in the financial market a year ago, in 2009 we had to face the consequences of the excessively conservative policies of banks’ risk management departments, which had to deal with their own liquidity, solvency, and debt issues.” “It was only the development of special action plans against the crisis early this year that have toned down its effects,” he explained.
Prospects for 2010 are not very encouraging, either, for major industries in the Spanish economy. Therefore, Mr Arroyo called for support to all the members of the corporation’s managerial staff in order to face the crisis the Spanish economic fabric is going through.

Figures in the Red
CEOSA’s estimated 2009 global turnover shows a negative evolution, with a 7% decrease over 2008, amounting to €471M. Likewise, the corporation’s income before taxes will equal loss for €15M. According to CEOSA’s president, “this makes restructuring even more necessary now, adjusting business to the new market situation.”
In line with this, the corporation’s CEO, Enrique Servando Sánchez, pointed out, “We’re not in a situation in which we can leave for tomorrow the problems we need to solve today.” Mr Sánchez added that he relied on his management team’s energy and hope, which would get the corporation through the crisis and beyond.
The CEOSA meetings were also attended by the First Vice President of the ONCE Board of Directors, Mario Loreto Sanz, who was present in the opening ceremony; and the organisation’s General Manager, Ángel Sánchez, in the closing event. In addition, Raquel Gómez, Corporate Manager for Organisation and Human Resources, and Marta Fernández, Economic, Financial, and Investment Manager at CEOSA, discussed the situation of individual companies in their fields of action.

A Great Group
The ONCE Business Corporation, CEOSA, comprises an integrated service group, Alentis; a property developer, Oncisa; a hotel chain, Confortel; a food company, Rubia; a street furniture supplier, Primur; an insurance broker, Seguronce; a company in the healthcare industry, Revitass; and a travel agency, Viajes 2000.