First sympathetic reaction from the Government upon learning of Taqa’s intention to launch a public takeover bid (takeover bid), jointly with Criteria, for 100% of Naturgy. Clear contrast with the landing of the Saudi sovereign fund STC in Telefónica, which ignited all the alarms in the Spanish Government.
“The Emiratis, who are already the majority in Cepsa, participate in Enagás, they come from the hand of an investor like Criteria, which offers all the guarantees of long-term investment commitment that seem to want to collaborate in a long-term industrial plan, which They can secure the gas supply and a management pact with the Spanish partner. The Saudis, on the other hand, sneaked into Telefónica without warning, seeking to achieve a much higher stake than any other shareholder in the telecommunications company, 10%, without knowing what their objective was,” sources from the Spanish executive point out. consulted by this newspaper.
In political terms, both 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 makes Western governments uneasy. In the field of telecommunications, the penchant for espionage of the crown prince who holds the reins of the Kingdom is amply documented. From phone tapping, the illegal control of tens of thousands of Twitter accounts, now data stored in the company’s computer systems.
“Naturgy needed a definition of its strategy that its current shareholding composition made impossible,” highlights a well-known expert in the energy sector to contextualize the Criteria movement that is shaking the shaker and that will foreseeably lead to the new alliance between the Catalan holding company. 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 regarding the continuity of Naturgy’s shareholders, replacing the capital funds, which hold 55% of its shares.
These capital funds, due to their very nature, short terms of permanence and search for rapid financial profitability, are interested in collecting dividends and especially in the rise in the price of shares to obtain abundant capital gains at the time of their safe exit. of the company. Much less in long-term industrial policies.
A radically different philosophy 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 when looking for replacement partners for the gas company, in the current economic and geopolitical circumstances it has seemed almost impossible to find a Spanish partner, not a European one, who at the same time provides industrial knowledge and direct access to energy sources. The green decarbonization agenda 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 driving away long-term investors.
From a geostrategic perspective, the traditional US umbrella, which ensured regular supply of energy raw materials in exchange for the European economic contribution to sustaining its global war machine, is cracking and Europe is seeking direct supply agreements.
In this same area of ??agreements with the states that own the resources, Naturgy is no longer the first customer of Algeria, the first seller of natural gas to Spain, surpassed by Italy and soon by Germany, and a minority partner of Naturgy.
Despite speculation about the possible contrary reaction of the Algerian government to a Naturgy agreement with an Abu Dhabi company, sources in the sector highlight that the emirate has always had good relations with the North African country and recall that they were even partners in the Medgaz gas pipeline. Likewise, sources in the negotiations have assured that during the negotiations the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, was consulted in order to ensure that the operation did not conflict with Spanish foreign interests.
This explains Criteria’s approach to Taqa, a manager of energy businesses linked to water and electricity and with the indirect financial muscle of the resources of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, which controls it mainly through the Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company (ADQ). and that it has enormous gas reserves that it wants to place on the world market.
