Celsa, the largest industrial company with Catalan capital, yesterday rejected the counterproposal of the creditor funds to accept the bailout designed by SEPI – dependent on the Ministry of Finance – considering it “incompatible with the framework of the requested public aid”. Although creditors initially requested to retain 49% of the shares, the latest proposal received by the company at the Castellbisbal headquarters involved creating a new convertible instrument outside of Spain. That vehicle would allow creditors to keep the company’s shares in certain circumstances.
“In this way, the granting of public aid would not serve to reduce the company’s indebtedness, since at the end of the term of the aid it would once again have a convertible debt even higher than the current one, around 1,700 million euros. ”, Celsa explained yesterday in a statement. In the opinion of the company chaired by Francesc Rubiralta, the latest proposal they have received “requires the displacement of the decision-making center and its administrative body outside of Spain”.
The company indicated yesterday that “the proposal of the funds has provoked the unanimous and express rejection of the executive committee and the board of directors of Grupo Celsa, who have urged the funds to reconsider their position and not prevent the achievement of the requested public aid ”. The current plan designed by SEPI, which has the support of the company, implies the disbursement of 550 million, but must be validated by the Council of Ministers. SEPI always made it a condition that the company reach an agreement with creditors.
Company sources recalled that the current creditor holders of the company have not invested or lent money to Celsa. “The funds that did not finance Grupo Celsa, but bought their debt in the secondary market with discounts of up to 90%, would obtain, thanks to the granting of public aid, returns of 80% per year, multiplying the investment by more than five. done,” they added.
The SEPI proposal, which is rejected by the funds, implies that they reduce the liability of some 2,200 million euros that they have with the company by some 1,000 million. This proposed reduction of the debt that the creditors qualify as a debt relief is defended by the company as a way of adjusting the price effectively paid for those funds to the existing debt.
The steel company also has the support of the workforce, which is very suspicious that the creditor funds are part of the capital, according to sources from the USOC union, a majority in the committee. “We are concerned and we do not agree with investment funds entering the capital. The SEPI should expedite the help to get out of the mess”, they added from the USOC.
