Preliminary green light for the largest rescue that the State Company of Industrial Holdings (SEPI) to date. This public company, which manages the fund created by the Government for the covid for strategic companies, has validated the file with which the Catalan steel company Celsa requested, in mid-2020, an aid of 550 million euros. Thus, as the economic newspaper Expansión advances this Thursday and as confirmed by EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA, a medium that belongs to the same publishing group as this newspaper, the rescue will be carried out through the Fund for the Support of Solvency of Companies Strategic, which is the mechanism that has also managed aid to firms such as Air Europe, Rough Felguera either Avoris (the result of the merge between Barcelo Y Globalia).
Of these 550 million euros that Celsa will initially receive, just over half (280.5 million) will reach the company in the form of a participative loan and the rest, about 270 million, through an ordinary loan. In any case, the operation must still go through the fund’s management board and is pending above all the ratification of the firm’s creditors.
As the Europa Press news agency recalls, the companies that bought the debt of this company based in Castellbisbal (Barcelona) are sculptor, CVC, SVP, Goldman Sachs, golden-tree, CrossOcean, J. P. Morgan, Attester Y Deutsche Bank. The group has a debt of more than 2,000 million euros in Spain. In 2021 it ended with a turnover of around 5.3 billion euros.
In addition, as the participatory loan exceeds 250 million euros, this economic injection also requires the approval of the European Comission and then from Minister council. In principle, the latter should not be a problem: the Government appreciates that the steel company retains its headquarters in Spanish territory and that it maintains the size of its workforce intact.
Aid to 21 companies
If confirmed, this would be the largest operation authorized by SEPI through this fund, which, endowed with 10,000 million euros, sought to strengthen the business solvency of non-financial companies affected by covid, which were considered strategic for the productive fabric. national or regional and that they did not have problems before the pandemic. However, so far this mechanism has only distributed just over 2,000 million euros, less than half of the 5,300 million requested.
Among the major grants granted to date are the rescue of Air Europa for 475 million euros, that of Gathered techniques for 340 million, the injection of 320 million euros to Avoris (the company that resulted from the integration of the Barceló and Globalia groups) or the transfer of 241 million to the hotel group Hotusa. The list, which makes up a total of 21 companies not yet counting Celsa, has recently been joined by hotel companies hesperia (55 million), abba (30 million), Julia (38 million) and Mediterranean (28 million), the four approved in the last Council of Ministers.