Almost at the last minute, yesterday the Government approved the latest aid in the form of loans from the Solvency Support Fund for Strategic Companies managed by SEPI. In an atypical meeting on Monday, the Council of Ministers approved the granting of 550 million euros in two loans –participatory and ordinary, almost in equal parts– for Celsa and another 171 million to a group of five other companies. These are the Vivanta dental clinics (40 million), the Isastur (40) and Imasa (35) engineering companies, and the Meeting Point (31) and Blue Sea (25) hotel companies.
In this relationship –the last after two years of validity of the fund before the European exception framework that allows public aid to be given despite the effects on competition ends on Thursday– Abengoa is not found. The Sevillian engineering company, in bankruptcy proceedings, had requested 249 million from the fund for five subsidiaries of Abenewco1 – where all the group's valuable assets are located – as a last resort in a complex restructuring plan that is now failing.
Six years after its covert liquidation, the Sevillian engineering seems hopelessly doomed to scrapping. As the managing council of SEPI made clear days ago, the eligibility conditions to receive public aid do not exist in his case. Isabel Rodríguez, Minister of Territorial Policy and Government spokesperson, said yesterday that her file is still pending resolution.
The rest of the groups, on the other hand, breathe. In the case of Celsa, between the participatory loan for 280.5 million and the ordinary loan for another 269.5 million, the Government will inject 550 million, which constitutes the largest amount granted to a business group in the almost two years that the fund has been in force , ahead of Air Europa's 475 million.
Celsa, which was interested in the aid in September 2020, has been negotiating with SEPI and its legal and financial advisors for more than a year and a half to demonstrate both its eligibility and the plan for the viability and return of the aid. In a hectic month, the company has obtained the approval of the SEPI, of the European Commission -which examines all the files of more than 250 million- and, yesterday, of the Government.
But not everything is done. The effective granting of the 550 million to Celsa is subject to a prior restructuring of its liabilities to reduce the leverage ratio – the relationship between debt and equity – and facilitate both the viability of the group and the return of public aid. Until now, the Rubiralta family, Celsa's sole shareholder, and the creditors have not reached an agreement, essential to unblock the process.
Since its creation in July 2020 to respond to the economic crisis that came with covid, the SEPI fund has granted aid to 30 companies, a large part of them in the tourism and transport sector, for a total of 3,255.6 millions. Although the managers have rejected operations for another 2,100 million, the reality is that the requests have been only 5,400 million, very low in relation to the 10,000 million initially budgeted by the Government.
The President of the Executive came to say at the time that the initial amount could be increased if necessary. In principle, there is no material time for more. With yesterday's approvals by the Council of Ministers, only the formalization of the new operations remains pending. And, in all cases, wait for the crisis to subside to try to meet the respective viability plans.
