“For God’s sake reach an agreement!” says Jerónimo Martins boss over elections

The CEO of one of Portugal ’s largest food distribution companies, Pedro Soares dos Santos of Jerónimo Martins, has called the snap elections in Portugal scheduled for May 18 as “sad” and called on the country’s political leaders to “reach an agreement” and have a “shared vision” to avoid a protracted political crisis.

“It makes me sad that we don’t have a shared vision among Portugal’s party politicians on areas such as health, justice and education.

“Not having a shared vision leads to suffering and suffering we are having with these snap elections”, he added.

“I just ask, for God´s sake, let’s not be left out of this vision for Europe because we can’t agree on things”, he said at a press conference at which the company’s financial results for 2024 were released.

The CEO grocer who runs the Pingo Doce supermarket chain – one of the largest in Portugal – gave the example of Germany as a model of inspiration for Portugal’s parliament to follow.

”The world’s geopolitics have changed a lot since Covid-19. This instability hasn’t gone away and won’t go away. Europe is facing a great challenge because it will have to have a shared vision for the world.

“A positive signal came out of Germany with the CDU and SPD uniting after the elections,” he said by way of example.

When quizzed about holding the two main executive posts at Jerónimo Martins, Pedro Soares dos Santos, who is currently both Chair and CEO, said it would depend on the shareholders if that were to continue.

Jerónimo Martins posted profits of €599 million last year which represents a fall of 20.8% on 2023.

The accounts were impacted by the payment of bonuses/dividends and a payment to start the Jerónimo Martins Foundation according to the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Ana Luísa Virgínia.

Nevertheless, even without this payment, the company’s profits have been falling. The board of directors has proposed a share dividend of €059 gross per share, 16% down on 2023.

When you look at the parts of the business that are most profitable, the group’s supermarket operations in Poland (Biedronka) are by far the most profitable with 70.5/ of the €33.5Bn consolidated sales.

This is followed by the supermarket chain Pingo Doce in Portugal at 15.2%, Ara supermarkets in Colombia 8.5%, Recheio (4.1%), and Hebe (1.7%).

Pedro Soares dos Santos criticised the high tax burden in the countries where the grocers operate saying that for the first time ever “we forked out more in taxes than we invested.”

All told the company paid €1.058Bn in taxes, of which €144 million was paid in Portugal, €833 million in Poland, €28 million in Colombia and 2 million in other countries.