Venture capital giant BlackRock has commissioned JP Morgan to carry out an accelerated share placement to sell 7.1% of Naturgy, Spain’s largest gas company, making it the fourth shareholder in the company chaired by Francisco Reynés.
The set to be placed, of around 69 million securities and intended for qualified investors, is valued at current prices at around 1.8 billion euros, even if these types of operations are generally concluded at a discount compared to the stock market price.
Naturgy closed this Wednesday at 26.16 euros per share and its shares have accumulated a revaluation of almost 20% since the start of the year. The operation was announced after a session during which the Ibex broke a new absolute record.
With this accelerated placement, notified to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) after the market close, the reorganization of Naturgy’s capital begins, after the frustrated public purchase offer (OPA) that the Emirati Taqa planned to launch with Criteria Caixa in 2024.
BlackRock currently controls around 18.5% of the energy company through the GIP fund and after selling this package it will become the fourth shareholder of the company, with 11.4%, behind Criteria Caixa (24%), the alliance between the British fund CVC and the March family (18.6%), another fund, the Australian IFM (15.2%) and the Algerian public company Sonatrach (4.1%), which is not present on the board of Naturgy.
GIP (acquired last year by BlackRock) and CVC have been considering selling their shares in the energy company for years, believing they have completed their investment cycle.
With this operation, the share of Naturgy’s capital listed on the stock exchange (called free-float) will skyrocket to around 25%. Naturgy’s low free float led the company to launch a public purchase offer for 10% of its capital last year, which allowed it to return to the main sustainable development indices a few weeks ago when the share freely listed on the stock exchange exceeded 18%.
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