“Abengoa Is Trading At The Right Price, As If Its Problems Were Sorted”

Abengoa: high risk investment betAbengoa: a high risk investment bet

Fernando Rodríguez | The latest executive to leave Abengoa is Jose Dominguez Abascal, executive chairman from the end of 2015, who has resigned from the company’s board. The reason for removing  Dominguez Abascal was “to facilitate a restructuring agreement with creditors,” Abengoa said in a statement.

Dominguez Abascal became executive chairman of the Spanish engineering and renewable energy firm right in the midst of its pre-insolvency proceedings (November 2015), substituting the then CEO Santiago Seage. The latter left Abengoa to manage its US subsidiary Yieldco, now called Atlantica Yield.

His departure happened just a few days after the company presented its 2015 results. Abengoa posted losses of 1.213 billion euros due to the restructuring of its balance sheet resulting from its complicated situation. In 2014, the company made 125 million euros.

For Ivan San Felix of Renta 4 Banco.

“The recent information about this departure, as well as that of the over 2,000 Abengoa executives and employees who have entered the jobs market in the face of the uncertainty surrounding the company’s management, have hardly affected its share price. Unless there are any surprises, it will be on ‘stand by’ for several months. I don’t believe investors know enough about the impact of these departures on the management. But the executives and other employees are dealing with an uncertain work situation, so it’s a normal thing that they should look for alternatives.”

Renta 4 Banco believes that Abengoa’s current stock market capitalisation – around 280 million euros – is anticipating a scenario in which the structure of the company’s debt is stabilised again and its Viability Plan is on track. Both of these issues have still to be resolved.

San Félix concludes:

“Abengoa’s shares are trading at the right price, as if the situation had been sorted. And we think it will stay like this until the end of the deadline for the pre-insolvency proceedings, scheduled for this October. Unless there is some positive news, which perhaps might boost the share price.”

 

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The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.