Endesa finalises plans to reactivate the Spanish economy

• At its General Shareholders' Meeting, Endesa’s chairman and CEO Juan Sánchez-Calero and José Bogas explained the crucial importance of accelerating the Energy Transition to emerge from the crisis caused by COVID-19.
• Bogas said that the company has been working for weeks “on action plans to drive national economic growth. We will be key players in the economic and social fabric and in the economic acceleration. We will act to do what is expected of us as a leading company in the sector”.
• The appointment of three new independent directors - Eugenia Bieto, Pilar González de Frutos and Alicia Koplowitz - was approved, giving Endesa a majority of independent directors (61.54% of the Board), to comply with the most stringent standards.

  Endesa chairman Juan Sánchez-Calero, and the company's CEO José Bogas today talked about the crucial nature of accelerating the Energy Transition to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis during their speeches at the General Shareholders' Meeting.

Sánchez-Calero said that the company has done essential work during this period to ensure the security and continuity of supplies, meeting the demand caused by the pandemic, "which has given stability to the entire community”.

He added that, “Endesa is a reliable company, which has fulfilled its commitments for the 2019 financial year”. Looking ahead, he said that “we are prepared to take action in a vastly different society and energy market that those we had just a few months ago”. Endesa’s chairman stressed the pressing need for a European restructuring framework, remarking that "it is up to Spanish institutions to design and apply measures to boost the recovery of our economy, particularly those that will enable the electricity sector become a leader in achieving that goal".

Bogas: action plan

During his speech today, Endesa CEO José Bogas today told the Endesa General Shareholders' Meeting that for weeks the company has been "working on action plans that will contribute to the country's economic growth. We will be key players in the economic and social fabric and in the economic acceleration. We will do what is expected of us as a leading company in the energy sector”.

Bogas talked of the urgent need to restore the damaged productive sector and reinstate the hundreds of thousands of people affected by this crisis. "This will be essential to a strong economic recovery", he said.

Before reviewing the milestones for the year, Bogas thanked healthcare workers, law enforcement officers and corps, key workers, teachers, non-governmental organisations, volunteers, and the community and companies for their efforts. "I am sincerely appreciative and grateful to all of them for all the work they have done and continue to do", he said.

In this regard, the CEO also underlined Endesa's role during the crisis, by doing what it knows how to do, "keeping energy flowing so that everything works". More than 2,400 people have been working in the field and almost 7,000 remotely to “keep the company going, providing the service that our customers expect and need, and at the same time helping to alleviate the health and humanitarian crisis that we are all experiencing".

Bogas reminded the meeting that on 29 March Endesa had announced the creation of a €25 million fund and launched a Public Responsibility Plan to provide supplies, services, equipment and infrastructure for use in the fight against COVID-19. The Plan has three main areas:

1.    The first is donations of materials and services: protective equipment for healthcare and public service workers, such as surgical masks and FFP2, Personal Protective Equipment and instruments to assist hospitalised patients, especially respirators and radiological equipment, among others.

2.    The second area has been to offer special energy supply conditions to care homes, hospitals and medicalised hotels. We are distributing equipment and assigning workers to guarantee electricity supplies in field hospitals and medicalised hotels and we are providing free supplies to these Endesa customer hotels during the state of alarm.

3.    The third area entails financial donations to institutions, agencies and health centres to cover some particularly severe, defined basic needs.

Bogas stressed the need to make major reforms to rebuild key elements of the productive sector, to rebuild confidence, create jobs and attract investment in connection with the Energy Transition. "Even before the COVID-19 crisis we all knew that there was no other path than sustainability, today. Now, as well as ratifying our commitments, I can assure you that sustainable development will be at the core of our activities".

To support his claim, the CEO of Endesa reviewed the company's Strategic Plan, presented in November, and reminded the meeting that under this plan, “in 2022 we will be the cleanest and lowest emitting integrated electricity company on the Iberian Peninsula”. "In 2019", he continued, "we have seen the first tangible results of Endesa's global transformation towards a more renewable mix: we have ramped up investment in renewable energy by 211% and 60% of the company's generation is already free of CO₂ emissions, 85% if we are talking about the Peninsula alone”.

Bogas said that, in 2019, Endesa's results were superior to the objectives presented to the market, with an Ebitda of €3.841bn, and an ordinary net result of €1.562bn. "We are in an excellent position to tackle the challenges of decarbonisation and digitisation", he said.

The CEO also highlighted that Endesa is the energy company that invests most heavily in Spain, and that up to 2022, the company will invest 7.7 billion euros, almost entirely in renewable asset development projects.

Lastly, Bogas talked about the signing of the new Collective Agreement, which he said has been "updated to modern times and what is expected by the society served by Endesa".

This was the first time that the meeting has been held 100% remotely in the history of Endesa, a step taken in response to the conditions derived from the ongoing health crisis and in compliance with the measured decreed on the state of alarm.

With a quorum of 85.3283%, all the items on the agenda were approved, including the appointment of three new independent directors: Eugenia Bieto Caubet, Pilar González de Frutos and Alicia Koplowitz and Romero de Juseu. Endesa now has a majority of independent directors, accounting for 61.54% of the members of the Board and it fulfils the most stringent standards in this regard.

In addition, the proposed dividend for a gross amount of €1.475 per share was also approved, representing an increase of 3% on the dividend charged to 2018 results.

Taking into account the dividend paid in 2019 against the 2018 results and the revaluation of the share price as of 31 December 2019, returns for shareholders were 25.3%.