"The two largest shareholders in Abertis are studying a possible leveraged buy-out with CVC, the European private equity firm, that would value the Barcelona-based infrastructure group at more than €25bn...
La Caixa, Spain’s largest savings bank, and the construction group ACS – which together control just less than 55 per cent of the group – are considering creating a buy-out vehicle with CVC that would launch a tender offer to minority shareholders. Abertis’ capital would then be restructured and non-core assets sold off.
According to bankers working on the deal, a planned tender offer to minority investors would value the target at about €12bn, or more than €25bn including debt. Abertis had a market capitalisation on Monday of €8.6bn."
O sea: 12.000.000.000 € / 739.037.783 acciones = 16,24 €/acción
"The operation would be financed from a €8bn club loan being organised by Mediobanca, the Italian investment bank.
The buy-out could be announced as early as this week, although bankers warn that it could still be called off at the last minute.
Bankers say ACS and La Caixa have been working on the LBO – or a simple sale of the ACS stake – for more than seven months, but warn that a deal could still be cancelled due to lack of financing. It is understood that Mediobanca has approached more than 20 banks about joining the syndicate to finance the operation."
Es decir, que la operación aún se puede caer si no se consigue reunir la financiación suficiente.
"ACS – headed by Florentino Pérez, the president of Spanish football club Real Madrid – has been seeking a buyer for his Abertis stake for at least a year. Vinci, the French concessions group, at one stage expressed an interest, and bankers have not discounted its return."
Es decir, Floren lleva intentanto soltar Abertis desde hace un año
"According to bankers, Mr Pérez would use the proceeds of the sale to continue his push into Iberdrola, Spain’s largest electricity group. ACS built a direct and indirect 12-per-cent stake in the company during a wave of takeover and merger activity in the sector between 2006 and last year. The ACS chairman wants to increase this to 20 per cent.
Vuelven con la historia de hacer caja para que Floren compre más acciones de Iberdrola, cosa que no me creo. ¿Os acordáis que la venta de Unión Fenosa supuestamente era para hacer caja y comprar más acciones de Iberdrola? ¿Qué sucedió con ese dinero? ¿No será que ACS está canina?
Attempts to convert this current stake into a board seat at Iberdrola have been resisted by the company, which argues that ACS is a competitor in electricity infrastructure and generation.
Apart from freeing up cash for ACS’s stakebuilding in Iberdrola, the deal could also help improve capital ratios at La Caixa, among Spain’s biggest lenders by assets and among its biggest institutional investors. Criteria Caixacorp, the bank’s listed equity holding vehicle, had a net asset value of €15.4bn at the end of May.
Although deriving most of its revenues from domestic and foreign toll roads, Abertis also manages car parks, airports, telecommunications infrastructure and satellites. In April it reported first-quarter net profits of €119m, up by almost 6 per cent on the year-ago period.
With total debt of about €14bn – less than six times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation – Abertis is the least leveraged of Spain’s main infrastructure groups, which include BAA owner Ferrovial, ACS itself, FCC, Acciona and Sacyr."
La deuda total de Abertis supone aprox. 6 veces su EBITDA
Fuente: Financial Times
