Getting back to the privatization of Aena and considering the results from the consultation process that they had performed, the company has already arranged the details for such operation, which would correspond to 51% of the capital. The possibility of selling the company only by 49% would reduce the value of the operation considering that the private partners would still have to depend on the Ministry of Public Works.
Hence, they would now be willing to lose the control over Aena.
The advisors have recommended that Aena forgets about selling a minority part of the public company because it is not attractive to the big financial investors.
According to this piece of news, the public entity would currently hold a debit balance for 12,600 million Euros, although it might be a million higher as per the book just published by the former president of Aena Carlos Medrano. This debt will have to be transferred to Aena Aeropuertos. It is to this part of Aena—Aena Aeropuertos—where the privatization project is limited to, so it will need to hold both the assets and the correspondent debts. The plan at the moment would consist of keeping the debt in the public company, which would act as a moneylender for the brand new company, mainly of private capital.
Aena would also have to count with some main shareholders, but the Aena’s president, José Manuel Vargas, aims to let industrial companies contribute with their technical know-how. The new Aena Aeropuertos would be born with a more flexible operational structure and it would be adapted to the requirements of the industry thanks to the voluntary dismissal program which has made 1,167 employees redundant.
Moreover, Aena performerd an austerity and efficiency plan which would have let them save 400 million Euros.
All together makes Aena starts to be ready to face a big privatization. Ending this year, the financial forecasts say that the ebitda will be of 1,600 million Euros. This would be nearly double than the correspondent amount for the year 2012.
Even more important could be the money received within the operation, which would help to improve the figures.
Source: elConfidencial.com
