First sympathetic reaction of the Spanish Government after learning of Taqa’s intention to make a public offer for the acquisition of shares (tendered offer), together with Criteria, for 100% of Naturgy. A clear contrast with the landing of the Saudi sovereign fund STC in Telefónica, which set off all the alarms in the Executive.
“The Emiratis, who are already a majority in Cepsa, participate in Enagás, come thanks to an investor like Criteria, which offers all the guarantees of long-term investment commitment that seem to want to collaborate on a long-term industrial plan, which they can secure the gas supply and a management agreement with the Spanish partner. The Saudis, on the other hand, entered Telefónica without warning and sought to obtain a much higher stake than that of any other shareholder in the telecommunications company, 10%, without it being known what their objective was”, point out sources from the Spanish Executive consulted by this newspaper.
In political terms the two states have similar characteristics, authoritarian regimes, without freedoms and oppressive for women, but the focus of their economic investments is different.
The Government of Saudi Arabia has defined a trajectory that unsettles Western governments. In the field of telecommunications, the crown prince’s penchant for espionage is widely documented. From tapping phones, the illegal control of tens of thousands of Twitter accounts, now X, to control political opponents and rival family clans or the failure of an Amazon investment in the country due to the eagerness of the heir to access data stored in the company’s IT systems.
“Naturgy needed a definition of its strategy that its current shareholder composition made impossible”, emphasizes a well-known expert in the energy sector to contextualize the movement of Criteria that is stirring the cocktail and which will predictably lead to the new alliance between the Catalan holding and Taqa, the Abu Dhabi company, to control the company.
The objective of Criteria, the investment arm of La Caixa, in this operation is to put an end to the uncertainty about the continuity of Naturgy’s shareholders and to replace the capital funds, which hold 55% of its shares.
These equity funds, by their very nature, short tenures and pursuit of quick financial returns, are interested in the collection of dividends and especially in the rise in the share price to obtain abundant capital gains at the time of the his safe exit from the company. Much less in long-term industrial policies.
A philosophy radically different from that of a stable investor with an indefinite perspective like Criteria, which has been present in the capital of Naturgy – and its predecessors: Gas Natural and Catalana de Gas – for more than forty years.
And at the time of looking for relief partners for the gas company, in the current economic and geopolitical circumstances it has seemed almost impossible to find a Spanish partner, nor a European one, who at the same time provides industrial knowledge and direct access to energy sources. The green agenda of decarbonisation and the relative decline of the gas business (in the most developed markets part of its consumption tends to be partially replaced by renewable energy), are alienating long-term investors.
From a geostrategic perspective, the traditional umbrella of the US, which ensured a regular supply of energy raw materials in exchange for European economic contribution to sustaining its global war machine, is cracking, and Europe is looking for direct supply agreements.
In this same area of ??agreements with the states that own the resources, Naturgy has ceased to be the first customer of Algeria, the first seller of natural gas in Spain, overtaken by Italy and soon by Germany, and Naturgy’s minority partner.
Despite the speculation about the possible adverse reaction of the Algerian Government to an agreement between Naturgy and an Abu Dhabi company, sources in the sector emphasize that the emirate has always had good relations with the North African country and remember that until and all were partners in the Medgaz gas pipeline. Also, sources of the negotiations have assured that during the negotiations the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manu-el Albares, was consulted in order to make sure that the operation did not collide with foreign interests spanish
This explains the approach of Criteria to Taqa, managing energy businesses linked to water and electricity and with the indirect financial muscle of the resources of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, which it controls mostly through the Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company (ADQ) ique has huge gas reserves that it wants to place on the world market.
