Financial sensitivity is on the political surface like rarely before. The Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business confirmed this Tuesday that it is analyzing whether the largest fund manager in the world, BlackRock, with almost nine trillion assets under management, should request authorization from the Council of Ministers to take ownership of 20, 6% of Naturgy. “It is a strategic company and we have to analyze all the details,” said department sources.
Last Friday, BlackRock announced its intention to acquire, for 11.4 billion euros, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an investment fund that currently has a 20.6% stake in Naturgy. This percentage, together with the 0.92% that BlackRock already owns through its investment funds, would place the financial giant as the second largest shareholder of the Spanish gas company.
Sumar and Podemos attacked this possibility yesterday and demanded that the Government veto it. “The Government must prevent the takeover of 20% of Naturgy by BlackRock. This fund has colossal dimensions and significant stakes in 19 important companies in the country. Its growing power threatens our autonomy,” says Carlos Martín Urriza, Sumar’s economic spokesman in Congress, through X (former Twitter). For her part, Irene Montero, Podemos leader and former Minister of Equality, states that “if the vultures want to take control and put democracy at risk, Spain must deepen intervention in this strategic sector and create a public energy company.”
Political alarms have been raised, among other things, due to the temporal proximity of this operation to that of Telefónica, despite the fact that they are very different cases. The surprise landing of the Saudi STC fund in Telefónica set off alarms in the Executive, which decided to acquire up to a maximum of 10% of the operator through the SEPI to guarantee its “Spanishness.”
It is now studying whether or not BlackRock’s operation on Naturgy is affected by the anti-takeover law that sets the 10% threshold for a foreign investor to have to request authorization from the Government to enter a strategic company.
That Naturgy is strategic became clear when the IFM fund entered the capital in 2021 after a complicated takeover bid that was finally approved by the Government with reservations.
The current situation is not so clear. “Naturgy’s shareholding has not changed. There is no fund that wants to enter. GIP is already a shareholder. BlackRock has bought GIP, it does not enter Naturgy directly,” financial sources explain. In addition, GIP has been announcing its interest in selling that stake in Naturgy for some time. “It remains to be seen if BlackRock respects the nature of GIP’s investment, that their investment reaches the maximum set time and they also want to leave or, on the contrary, they want to stay. If it is the first option, they may not even exceed 10% of the capital,” they add. We will have to wait until the third quarter of 2024.
“Why has no one until now questioned the weight of GIP in Naturgy?” these sources point out. “GIP is also an international fund and much more aggressively seeks profitability in short periods of time, BlackRock has a desire to remain in its investees,” they question.
