The Government will create a technology company to mobilize 20,000 million and integrate 10% of Telefónica

The new Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT) would become a 'digital SEPI'

The Government will create a public company, the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), which will mobilize 20,000 million euros and would integrate the 10% stake that it plans to take through SEPI in Telefónica.

This was announced this Monday by the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Service, José Luis Escrivá, who visited the Spanish Pavilion of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) at Fira de Barcelona Gran Via.

Escrivá has said that he will present the project to create the SETT as an emergency in the Council of Ministers next week so that it can become operational in two or three months, and, asked if this large digital ecosystem would integrate Telefónica, has responded: "It makes sense to fit it in."

The State Company of Industrial Participations (SEPI), dependent on the Ministry of Finance, finalizes the stock market intermediation contract to proceed with the Government's entry into Telefónica through the acquisition of up to 10% of the company's shares, a process in which both national and foreign financial entities are being surveyed.

The minister has framed the creation of the SETT, a sort of 'digital SEPI', in the need to adapt to "a full-fledged industrial revolution" that will impact sectors hitherto isolated from technology, which requires, in his words, for Spain to have decision-making capacity.

The new public partnership will aim to achieve strategic technological sovereignty, the promotion of growth and productivity, the transformation of the public sector, trend analysis and public-private collaboration.

The SETT will bring together under its direction existing initiatives such as the PERTE Chip, endowed with 12,000 million euros for semiconductors and microelectronics, the NextTech fund, with 4,000 million euros to invest in companies with a high component of technological innovation or the Audiovisual Hub fund , with 1.7 billion euros for companies in this sector.

"The sum of these three areas represents the initial mobilization of 20,000 million euros, which will materialize in investments in all these areas. This requires specialized teams and as a country we must have a very powerful presence," Escrivá assured.

According to the head of the Government in the digital field, the SETT represents "one more step in the ambitious process of technological transformation that Spain is leading", which will allow synergies to be created between the different initiatives in cutting-edge technological fields, acting as an interlocutor unique with national and international, public and private agents, and take better advantage of the country's competitive advantages.

Specifically, the Government trusts that the creation of the SETT will make it possible to reinforce strategic technological sovereignty at a time of great international competition in areas such as chip design, new materials or investment in technologies with greater capacity to drive and traction over the rest of the economy.

It will also accelerate the adoption of technologies with the greatest potential for improving productivity and boosting growth in the medium and long term; will promote the transformation of the public sector, incorporating specialized technological talent; will improve trend analysis capabilities in a sector in which the speed of change is increasingly intense, and will promote public-private collaboration, promoting and consolidating the Spanish digital ecosystem through strategic dialogue, as detailed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation it's a statement.

The new 'SEPI Digital' will be in charge of promoting and executing investments in strategic sectors linked to digital transformation, in particular telecommunications, semiconductors, digitalization or the audiovisual sector.

To do this, it will identify strategic sectors and projects, develop analytical and financial capabilities for investment in technologically innovative companies and evaluate the technological and economic-financial feasibility of the projects.

Likewise, it will group the State's participation in high-tech, telecommunications and digitalization sectors to seek synergies with the aim of promoting technological transformation.

It will also support companies active in Spain, "whatever their size and ownership of capital", that commit to carrying out technological projects in the digital field and emerging sectors related to digitalization, by granting credits, taking of shares or other minority participations representing the share capital or the granting of subsidies, among other forms of support.

The SETT will integrate the current State Society of Microelectronics and Semiconductors (SEMyS) to give a boost to the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation of Microelectronics and Semiconductors (Perte Chip) through the processes of participation and enhancement of the Spanish industry. semiconductors in the different European and international programs, in particular in the field of design, skills development, pilot lines or manufacturing, especially the coordination of actions related to the Chips Act of the European Union.

It will also provide business, consulting, technical assistance or construction and infrastructure management services related to the semiconductor industry.

TEAM SPECIALIZED IN INVESTMENT OPERATIONS

To do this, it will have a team specialized in investment operations, capitalizing and consolidating "truly transformative" projects in the technological field, and, in particular, in venture capital, aimed at promoting investment in startups or scaleups with a substantive component of technological innovation with high traction capacity for the rest of the economy.

The company will attract investors and technological knowledge in public-private collaboration to generate industrial capabilities in strategic sectors and will act with financial and promotional measures related to the planned actions in the audiovisual sector, with the preferred objective of "converting Spain into a hub of attraction of the industrial production of content and in improving the competitiveness of this entire cultural industry".