La Caixa breaks its silence regarding the Australian fund IFM's takeover bid for

Naturgy

and assures that, far from selling its shares, it will strengthen its participation in the capital by buying new securities.

The Catalan industrial holding company assures that in any case it will not exceed 30% of the capital, which would force it to launch a takeover bid for the gas group.

The significance of this movement is due not only to the decision made by CriteriaCaixa, led by

Isidro Fainé

, but also to the way in which it justifies it. It lists up to four arguments: its willingness to keep the company listed in Spain, guarantee an industrial plan consistent with the just energy transition endowed with productive investment, the maintenance of the security of energy supply to Spain and the veto of the potential dismemberment of the company to through the sale of businesses without ensuring their reinvestment.

There is also a purely financial component that justifies Fainé's decision.

"Naturgy has always been one of its main investments for CriteriaCaixa, where today it owns 24.8%, the value of which amounts to around 5,000 million euros. The dividends that CriteriaCaixa receives annually from Naturgy cover more than half of the annual expense of the Obra Social de la Fundación Bancaria "la Caixa" ", the group explains in a statement.

CriteriaCaixa, chaired by Isidro Fainé, is the holding company that manages the assets generated by the "la Caixa" Foundation over more than a century, with a gross value of its assets exceeding

20,000 million euros.

The Catalan group's decision comes even before the Government has officially ruled on whether to approve or reject IFM's offer for a company it considers strategic for the country.

However, the latest interventions by several ministers suggested that the operation would be approved with some guarantees on the regulated assets.

Fainé's refusal to sell is in addition to that announced by the other two reference partners in Naturgy, the

CVC and GIP funds,

which welcomed the operation a day after meeting it but assured that they would not sell their titles.

Between the three they account for 66% of the shares, to which is added 4% in the hands of Sonatrach.

In this way, IFM has very difficult to reach its objective of reaching 23% of the capital that it had planned.

It will depend on its ability to seduce the 21% of the shares that are distributed among different investment funds and the 8% that small shareholders have.

In addition, the way in which Criteria justifies its decision hits IFM's waterline, under suspicion of a potential interest in dismembering the group in alliance with the other two investment funds present in the capital.

The Australian group has been defending itself against this accusation for months and ensuring that its strategy is to guarantee a stable and long-term strategic plan for the energy company.

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