“2023 will be a little quieter” for the San Donato Group, “in the sense that we give ourselves time to digest the investments made. Because we have invested almost half a billion in recent years, among the 360 million euros the new Galeazzi-Sant’Ambrogio, and 120 million for the Iceberg, considering the cost of all equipment. So let’s take a little break for a year: apart from standard investments in equipment, there won’t be major works in 2023”. After an intense phase, made up of new hi-tech structures inaugurated and projects also launched abroad, the one envisaged by Paolo Rotelli, vice president of the group, will be a ‘sabbatical year’ from investments during an event organized yesterday evening by GSD for the holidays Christmas. While a ‘real estate debut’ could be on the horizon.
Behind the facade of an old clinic in Milan lies a secret dream. And to mention it was Gilda Gastaldi, president of the Gsd Foundation, wife of the historic number one of the group, Giuseppe Rotelli, who died in 2013. The idea is on the one hand to transform into a residential project what was until about 2011 the the Città di Milano nursing home, in via Lamarmora, on the other hand, to also create a museum in the same structure where over 50 works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries kept in the Milanese Gastaldi Rotelli collection, made by artists such as Procaccini, Cairo , Nuvolone, Magnasco, “mainly Lombardo-Veneto”, explains Paolo Rotelli. Masterpieces these days on display at the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan.
It would not be a healthcare investment, but a real estate one, therefore a novelty, confirms Rotelli. “You don’t think of making extra-luxury apartments, but something accessible – he specifies – The vast majority will have smaller sizes, in an area that needs housing”. The idea “is to do something modern, but respecting all constraints,” says Rotelli. The facade of the building “is historic and therefore we would respect the constraints of landscaping and create something seismic and ecological compliant”.
At the Città di Milano nursing home “there was no more healthcare activity” for several years. “At the time – Rotelli retraces – we took all the staff and transferred them to the Madonnina”, another reality of the group “which this year achieved its turnover record, reaching 40 million. We concentrated everything there, why not it would have made sense to invest a little in one structure and a little in the other. Just as today we could not transform the Lamarmora structure into a hospital again, because the standard is not in line with current accreditation”, he reflects. More details of the real estate project should emerge in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, returning to the health front, “we give ourselves time to spend a year that should have an excellent result, 2023”, Rotelli reiterates in conclusion. “2022 was excellent net of expensive energy. We expect an even better year for 2023. We take a break from investing and then start again in 2024. The goal is to be ultra-solid in 2023, to be sure, whatever what happens”.
The energy factor – “We made an immense effort in 2022 to relaunch ourselves and bring us back to the level of activity we had in 2019. We also did much more and in fact without expensive energy we would have returned with accounts in line with the pre-pandemic. All our effort has been canceled by energy which this year weighs over 50 million more on our balance sheets than in 2021”. Paolo Rotelli again explains how much the extra costs linked to bills have impacted the accounts of the San Donato Group, summing up 2022.
In 2021 the group’s consolidated turnover had been 1 billion and 750 million, it had returned to pre-Covid levels. And 2022 has “been an excellent year”, following this trend, says Rotelli. But the extra costs weighed. “If we hadn’t been able to cover and manage the energy supply in a somewhat dynamic way”, for example the new Galeazzi self-produces energy for 10% of its needs, “those extra 50 million could have been almost 100 million and would have been impossible to sustain,” he assures. “But while those who produce can decide to do it a few months later, we cannot decide to cure a few months later”.
The Gsd vice president also underlines how it is “difficult to make forecasts for next year. In theory – he reasons – Europe should adapt to the fact that energy is scarce. So I expect the price to stabilize at high levels, but not keep increasing” for various reasons. “And then I hope that the international situation will quickly settle down and that the cost of energy will also return to normal levels. In the meantime, however, without substantial state aid, our business risks being unsustainable. We do not protest, nor do we ask for anything “, Rotelli is keen to point out, “if not to have equal treatment with the public. In the sense that we hope that there will be enough funds to cover 100% of the increase in the cost of the bill even in the accredited private sector”. One road that some private companies are taking is to increase prices taking into account the cost of energy. “But ours is a different situation – he specifies – The San Donato Group, being part of the accredited private sector, has 81% of the activity for the National Health Service”.
Projects abroad
– “After 2 years in which our hospitals have dedicated themselves entirely to the care of Covid patients”, in any case “the group is more determined than before, not only in consolidating its leadership in Italian healthcare, but also with the aim of pursue healthcare investments abroad”, explained the vice president of the San Donato Group and president of Gksd holding, Kamel Ghribi. “We are well advanced with the projects that see us present in Kenya, in Egypt where we will manage a public hospital and in the United Arab Emirates. The construction of a GSD Smart Clinic in Abu Dhabi will also start shortly”, is the picture he outlined yesterday evening during the event which was attended by numerous representatives of institutions, law enforcement, the world of art and culture and science.
“Our philosophy – underlines Ghribi – remains the same and is getting stronger and stronger: a large group at the service of a large region and a large country”.