The president of the steel company Sidenor, José Antonio Jainaga, conveyed last week to the Trilantic fund, the main shareholder of Talgo, an offer that involves the payment of €148 million for its 29.9% stake, which includes a premium over the current stock market levels. However, the price seems to fall short of the financial entity’s expectations.
Talgo recorded a 3.27% increase in the stock market on Monday, reaching €3.47 per share, which values the percentage held by Trilantic at €128.5 million. Jainaga’s offer is around €4 per share, below the €5 requested by Trilantic, which would amount to €185 million for their stake. This valuation of €5 coincides with the amount put on the table by the Hungarian consortium Ganz-Mavag in the takeover bid registered in March with the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), which was vetoed by the government at the end of August. The government insisted that Talgo is a strategic company for the country and that it perceived risks to national security due to that change of control.
Jainaga and a team of Sidenor executives, grouped in their investment arm Mirai, do not want to buy more than 29.9% of the capital to avoid the obligation to launch a takeover bid for Talgo. Along the way, the Basque entrepreneur is seeking allies to share the financial effort. Among them are the BBK, Kutxa, and Vital foundations, shareholders of Kutxabank. Kutxabank is involved in another company in the railway sector, CAF, which has already made it clear that it is not interested in forming an industrial corporation with Talgo, as its future plans are heading in other directions, such as establishing operations in the United States and the Nordic countries.
Sidenor offers €148 million to Trilantic for 29.9% of Talgo, but fund wants €185
