Judge Jesús Gabaldón Codesido, in charge of the liquidation of Abengoa’s most valuable assets, has decided to award those businesses to Cox Energy, the Spanish renewables group founded by Enrique Riquelme. This brings to an end a long process that began months ago, following the collapse of Abengoa, the largest industrial bankruptcy in Spain so far. Santander, CaixaBank, BBVA, Crédit Agricole and HSBC have five days to validate the operation.
Cox was one of four final bids that had been submitted to take over Abengoa’s operating and valuable assets, once the group has been fully broken up.
Other bids came from the Spanish group Urbas, the American fund Terramar, the Ultramar group (linked to the Mexican Amodio family, which now controls OHLA) and Portugal’s Resource Project Management (RCP). On the other hand, partial bids had been submitted for some specific assets by Acciona, Elecnor, Voltan Technical Services, Antonio Rodríguez García and Rogerio Ribeiro Abreu dos Santos, the latter two directors of Abengoa itself.
Cox made a final improved offer amounting to €564.4 million, although most of it is for the assumption of debt. The offer includes the assumption of €205.9 million of liabilities derived from pending projects and the workforce (guarantees, invoices, etc.); €252 million of financial debt, €56.4 million for the liquidations of the personnel of the Spanish perimeter and €22.8 million of debt with the Social Security. The proposal also adds up to €27.3 million of Cox’s own funds, which cover the totality of the privileged credits of the insolvency proceedings.
