2023-09-08 19:08:16
Yolanda Díaz has burst into the stock market operation of the Saudi technology company STC over Telefónica and has done so to ask the government to which it belongs to stop the operation. The second vice president and acting Minister of Labor has claimed to the economic vice president Nadia Calviño that the Government “cannot consent” that the acquisition of a 9.9% stake for a total amount of 2,100 million euros continue. “This operation cannot continue. That is how I have sent it to you and that is how I am going to defend it,” Díaz said in statements to the media before the presentation of the book ‘For a Constitution of the Earth’ by Luigi Ferrajoli.
For the leader of Sumar, “Telefónica is a strategic company for our country and, as such, it has the management of the most important thing in our lives, which is data, it is not only the oil of the 21st century, it is that everything lies in them”, he insisted, before remarking that Spain must “think” about “what are the strategic sectors of the country, who can be part of the boards of directors of those sectors and what are the limits. Of course I will work so that this operation does not occur.”
These statements came 24 hours after the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, celebrated in Brussels the interest of international funds in Spanish companies after assuring that “it’s great that there are investors as important as sovereign wealth funds in the world !” and celebrate that a sovereign fund like that of Saudi Arabia “is committed to Spain and Spanish companies.” Escrivá also defended that “there are a series of procedures and mechanisms to ensure that it is compatible with Spain’s strategic autonomy.”
The minister also defended the discretion with which the operation has been carried out, because “these things are done that way”, something that “should not be surprising because market operations are done discreetly because that is how institutional investors operate.” usually”.
Instead, today Díaz has estimated that all countries have rules for the country’s strategic affairs and that Spain also has to think about what its strategic sectors are, who can be part of the boards of directors of those strategic sectors and what are the limits . In his opinion, “Spain still has a lot to do” to reach the levels it needs in industrial matters and with regard to the mentioned strategic sectors.
Telefónica is the main investment by Saudi Arabia in a Spanish company and one of the most important by a Middle Eastern country in an Ibex 35 company, only comparable to the one carried out with Iberdrola by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). ), which became its most relevant shareholder with 8.70% of the company. Once the purchase of 9.9% of Telefónica by the Saudi company was made public, Calviño limited himself to saying that the Executive will apply all the necessary mechanisms “to defend the interests of Spain”, since Telefónica is a company strategic for the country. If the Saudi group had acquired 10% of Telefónica, the Government’s anti-takeover shield would have been activated, approved in the midst of a pandemic in the face of the stock market crash to protect strategic Spanish companies from possible interest from foreign groups, initially non-EU, and later, also Europeans.
#Díaz #demands #entry #shareholding #stopped