January and February 2020 were particularly mild months in Europe, leading to a reduction in sales of LPG. At the end of February the first cases of Coronavirus were identified in Italy. The virus quickly spread all over the world, causing numerous deaths in the population. Not all countries in the European Union have been affected by the virus to the same degree. The countries of the European Union did not adopt the same measures at the same time to prevent the spread of infection. As a result, the economic/social impact has been, and will continue to be, different. The impact of the pandemic on the LPG sales of the Group companies has also been varied. The lockdowns of different lengths resulted in reductions of varying degrees in the quantities sold in the gas cylinder (closure of bars and restaurants), industrial and transport (traffic ban) sectors, while in some countries domestic consumption increased. Currently, the results of almost all companies are largely in line with those of the same period in 2019 but in some countries where tourism is an economically important activity in the summer (Greece and Italy) a drop in the numbers of foreign tourists is expected in the coming months and therefore a reduction in revenues compared with the previous year. It is very difficult to make predictions about the economic and financial performances of individual countries at the present time. This difficulty also stems from the fact that the experts are talking about a possible “second wave” in the autumn. In any case, since the start of the pandemic, all of our companies in every country have taken steps to continue selling and distributing LPG in total safety and in full compliance with the specific government protocols in individual countries.

Another important asset of Veroniki Holding’s is real estate. The policies adopted by the authorities to contain the pandemic have also had a negative economic impact on the real estate sector. On the basis of the data currently available to us, it is reasonable to expect a reduction in the profitability of this sector in 2020 compared with 2019.