2023-09-17 03:54:31
The weight of public companies increases in Asturias. Since the very strong privatization processes of state-owned industrial companies experienced between 1996 and 2000, and which marked the end of the Asturian singularity as a territory hegemonically dominated by the public manufacturing sector, there had not been a resurgence of the prominence of the organizations under the control or influence of public powers.
The activation of the Gijón regasification plant in July, although only as a logistics warehouse for liquefied natural gas, gives additional prominence in the Asturian economy to Enagás, in which the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI) has a 5% stake and 3.15% by the United Arab Emirates through the sovereign company Mubadala Investment. Enagás, operator of the national gas pipeline network and its network in the Principality, managed to start operations for a facility whose construction, completed in 2012, cost 380 million and whose maintenance during the eleven years that it has been closed since then has meant another 282.7 million.
The agreement reached between Enagás and the Galician company Reganosa by which this company (owner of the Mugardos regasification plant) will subscribe to 25% of the Gijón plant (an operation already authorized by the Government and by the National Commission of Markets and Competition) It will mean the entry of the Xunta de Galicia into the shareholding of the El Musel facility, of which it will indirectly hold 6.075%, as well as the Algerian state company Sonatrach, which will take 2.499%.
The awarding of the logistics management of the regasification plant to Endesa, which began operating the plant on August 11, represents another reinforcement of the public weight in the gross domestic product (GDP) of the community: Endesa has been owned since 2009 by Enel, the Italian state energy company.
This is not Endesa’s first implementation in Asturias (it already owned 50% of the Grandas de Salime hydraulic power plant, which it shares with EDP, and the Belmonte wind farm) and it will not be the last either: with EDP it is promoting a plan to build a reversible hydraulic pumping plant in the Grandas de Salime reservoir and has advanced the project to build two wind farms in Taramundi, Vegadeo and Villanueva de Oscos.
The Austrian state energy company Verbund, 51% dominated by the Government of its country, has reinforced its until now incipient implementation in the wind sector of the Principality: to its dominant position in the Buseco park, in the municipalities of Tineo, Valdés and Villayón has just added the acquisition from EDP of three others: Sierra de Bodenaya, in the council of Salas, and Sierra de Tineo and Pico Gallo, in the municipality of Tineo.
The Chinese state company CTG (China Three Gorges) was already present in Asturias due to its status as the largest shareholder since 2011 of the Portuguese group EDP, owner for a decade before of the former Asturian company Hidroeléctrica del Cantábrico. CTG’s attempt in 2018 to take over 100% of the Portuguese electricity company was neutralized by other shareholders and the board of directors, but the Chinese state group has continued to take positions in the Iberian Peninsula with asset purchases, including the acquisition of the company Cefiro Energía to the Asturian group Masaveu.
At the beginning of this year, the Chinese state giant, with a subsidiary company in Madrid, established a technical office in Gijón to supervise the works carried out by the group in Europe.
The state groups Sonatrach (Algeria), Qatar Investment Authority (Qatar) and Norges Bank (Norway) also have stakes in EDP, the largest electricity company in Asturias by employment and business volume.
Energy is not the only sector that sovereign funds and state groups from other countries covet. The sovereign fund Norges Bank (with a purely financial investment strategy) has emerged this year as the fifth largest owner of Unicaja Banco, successor to the Asturian Liberbank and in which the Cajastur Banking Foundation also participates as a reference shareholder.
The acquisition on the 5th of 9.9% of Telefónica by the Saudi state company STC, which will thus become the largest shareholder of the Spanish operator if the operation is finally authorized, has motivated both satisfaction with investor interest international for taking positions in Spain such as the fear that critical sectors of the national economy could fall under foreign control or influence and in some cases from countries not subject to democratic and free market rules. Telefónica’s presence in Asturias is, as in the rest of Spain, significant in terms of employment and relevant in terms of network deployment and number of clients.
Until now, foreign sovereign funds had not had a notable presence in the productive fabric of the Principality. But this does not mean that they have remained outside the regional economy.
The Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company fund, from the Kingdom of Bahrain, took 49% of the Asturiana de Aleaciones company (Alestar) in 2016, owner of three factories in Gozón and Carreño, as well as another in Bahrain.
The Dubai Investment Authority allied itself in 2020 with the American venture capital company Advent, the British venture capital fund manager Cinven and the German foundation RAG-Stiftugn to acquire the elevators, escalators and airport walkways business of ThyssenKgrupp. with two factories in Mieres and a technology center in Gijón and the creation of TKE, the new company that owns these assets.
In turn, Abu Dhabi Ports Group, a company belonging to the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund, acquired last year 40% of Algeposa Terminal Asturias, a stevedoring and disposal company for steel products for ArcelorMittal in the ports of Gijón and Avilés.
Quiet.
The State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI), successor of the former National Institute of Industry (INI), which became the largest manufacturing employer in Asturias (to the point of providing 44% of the community’s industrial employment and 41% of the gross added value of the secondary sector), has followed a downward trend, especially abrupt during the privatizations of the second half of the 90s. Since then the sequence has continued downwards.
At the end of 2021 (latest official data available) it had 2,413 employees in the Principality, 142 less than a year before and just 4.43% of the 54,520 it had in 1978, before the factory conversions of the 1980s. Thus, Asturias continues to concentrate 3.2% of the total employment of SEPI companies in Spain (some of them non-industrial), a weight greater than that of Asturias (between 1.8% and 1.94% ) in the Spanish economy by contribution to GDP and employment. Hunosa, the state mining company that is a 100% subsidiary of SEPI, and which was – with the former public steel company Ensidesa – the largest employer in the region, now has only half a thousand jobs of the 26,000 it had during its period of existence. greater gigantism. After this forceful reduction in personnel, under the protection of the cascade of coal well closures, Hunosa is trying to reinvent itself through diversification linked to the energy sector: it has projects to capture CO2 and use biomass through the transformation of its thermal power plant in La Pereda (Mieres), for which 50 megawatts were awarded in the October auction; It is developing the geothermal use of pumped mine water and is developing initiatives on green hydrogen with Nortegás, Duro Felguera and Alsa. The company, which has continued to make losses since its founding in 1967, is looking for a new accommodation and the unions are demanding that it be the state energy company of Spain. The presence of the SEPI in Asturias increased last year, although temporarily, through the rescues approved after the covid by the Government of three Asturian engineering companies (Duro Felguera, Isastur and Imasa) charged to the Solvency Support Fund of Strategic Companies (FASSE) as well as three other companies established in the community: Volotea, Abba and Celsa, although aid to the latter is suspended until its ownership and financial restructuring are clarified. Another state fund (Fonrec), managed by the public company Cofides, did the same with the Asturian Azvase (current AVS Millenium Salud) and the Catalan metallurgical company Navec, with a plant in Asturias. Debate. The role of the public company has been much discussed and it is common for Asturias to blame its former dominance for regional burdens such as the low entrepreneurship and dynamism of Asturian society. But this thesis requires a review: in reality the INI was implemented in Asturias due to the insufficiency of the business network and there are a large number of examples both of companies promoted by people who previously worked in public companies and of private companies and businesses that were born directly to the shadow of the large industrial groups of the State. In Spain, public companies were demonized and companies that, like Endesa, ended up in the hands of a state, but a foreign one, were privatized. It also happened temporarily with Aceralia when it was sold to Arbed, in which the state of Luxembourg was a shareholder. Sometimes what goes out the door, comes in through the window.
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