The business is in the infrastructure. One of the most repeated phrases during the Spain Investor Day that was held this week in Madrid was confirmed yesterday with one of those pieces of news that convulse investors, even if they catch consumers somewhat far away. The largest fund manager in the world, the American BlackRock, with some 10 billion dollars under management, announced the purchase of another giant, the Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) fund, owner of 20.6% of Naturgy. Adding this stake to the 0.92% it already owned in Naturgy, BlackRock now controls 21.5% of the Spanish gas company and becomes its second shareholder, behind Criteria Caixa, with 26.7%.
The Rioja investment funds (CVC and the March family) remain Naturgy's third shareholder, with 20.4%. Next is the Australian IFM, with 14% of the capital.
GIP, also American and which manages $100 billion, is one of the largest infrastructure funds in the world, with assets as notable as Gatwick airports in London, Sydney airports and, also in Australia, the port of Melbourne. Strategic assets such as the Suez Canal and shale pipelines (oil from that rock) are also under its management.
BlackRock has agreed to pay $12.5 billion (€11.4 billion) for Global Infrastructure Partners. Of them, 3,000 million will be in cash, while the rest will be executed through the acquisition of 12 million shares, worth about 9,500 million at the closing price of the shares last Thursday.
The seven founders of GIP, including its president, Adebayo Ogunlesi, will receive that money in two installments. The first, at the closing of the operation, which is expected in the third quarter of 2024, and the other 5 million in five years.
According to the note sent yesterday by BlackRock, “GIP directors intend to distribute part of the profits among its 400 employees.
In total, founders and employees of GIP will become the largest shareholders of BlackRock and Adebayo Ogunlesi himself will join the group's executive committee and will be responsible for directing the entire infrastructure business. The new company will have more than 150,000 million dollars (140,000 million euros) in alternative assets. It will be able to compete on equal terms with the large funds in the infrastructure sector such as Macquarie or Brookfield, with the added privilege of being the market leader in variable income. In fact, after this acquisition, BlackRock hopes to repeat the successful move it made in 2009 with the purchase of Barclays Global Investors, which led it to become the largest provider of exchange-traded funds. Now, the cake is in the infrastructure, which BlackRock itself has quantified in a market of one trillion dollars. “One of those that offers the most attractive long-term investment opportunities as structural changes are reconfiguring the global economy,” as defined by the BlackRock note. “The global need for infrastructure, combined with high deficits that limit public spending, creates an unprecedented opportunity for private capital to invest in infrastructure,” said Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, in the statement yesterday.
If the operation can be a real shock in international markets, it will be no less so in Spain, where GIP was one of the main shareholders of Naturgy. The gas company yesterday declined to comment on the operation and how it may influence the company.
GIP has always been classified as an aggressive fund and, unlike the rest of Naturgy's shareholders, it has never proclaimed an intention to remain long-term. He entered the gas company in 2016 and the pressure to amortize that investment was pressing. This type of funds usually comes out of your projects between five and 10 years. GIP had been at Naturgy for seven years. The Gemini project, which the company presented in February 2022 to split the company into two, was, among other things, a formula to articulate that exit. But the war in Ukraine and the need to ensure supplies prevented this.
It remains to be seen if BlackRock wants to maintain GIP's exit schedule, or considering its more strategic profile, is committed to the long term. A not unreasonable option considering that both entities already formed a joint company, called Medina Partnership, which has 49% of the gas pipeline that connects Africa with Spain, Medgaz, 51% of which is in the hands of the Algerian gas company Sonatrach.
