The Treasury injected another 500 million into the SEPI in March to purchase Telefónica shares

MADRID, 29 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

In March, the Ministry of Finance approved the injection of another 500 million euros to the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI) to undertake the acquisition of Telefónica shares, according to the report of the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE). ) corresponding to last month.

This amount is added to the other 500 million euros that the portfolio led by María Jesús Montero approved in February for this purpose, so the amount of transfers from the Treasury to the SEPI for the purchase of shares of the Spanish telecom company now amounts. to 1,000 million euros.

Specifically, the March budget execution report indicates that there was a capital contribution of 500 million euros to the public entity, an injection of liquidity that, although it is not specified that it is for the purchase of Telefónica shares by the State , follows the same scheme as the injection carried out in February.

The State already owns 6.169% of Telefónica through the SEPI and the information sent by the public entity to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that the share package of the public entity dependent on the Ministry of Finance corresponds to 354,750,278 titles.

In addition, it is specified that the average price that the State has paid for each Telefónica share is 3.9378 euros, so the Government's investment in the Spanish company is already close to 1,400 million euros (1,396.93 million euros ).

If the price of Telefónica at the close of trading last Friday is taken into account, which ended at 4.222 euros, the State's shareholding package in the company has a market value of 1,497.75 million euros, that is, about 100 million euros more than the amount disbursed so far.

In this way, SEPI continues to advance in the Government's mandate to acquire up to 10% of the operator chaired by José María Álvarez-Pallete, a movement that occurred in reaction to the surprising landing of the Saudi telecom STC in Telefónica last September .

Specifically, STC acquired 9.9% of Telefónica's share capital - 4.9% in direct shares and 5% in financial derivatives - in an operation valued at 2.1 billion euros.

In this sense, the Government has already expressed its intention to request a seat on the board of directors of Telefónica, although the 6.169% stake that they currently hold is not, in theory, sufficient for this, given that the threshold is located at 6.66%.

However, it should be noted that other shareholders with a smaller stake, such as CriteriaCaixa, have representation on the company's board of directors.

Before the move announced last Friday, SEPI held 5.034% of Telefónica's share capital, although on March 25 an initial stake of 3.044% emerged.