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4 November 2016 – Expansión
Liquidity crisis / The engineering group has two large corporate headquarters in Madrid and Gijón, which it is looking to sell to cover its financial commitments whilst it resolves several legal disputes overseas.
Duro Felguera explained yesterday during the presentation of its results for the 9 months to September 2016 that it has ordered the sale of its “non-productive assets” to avoid the deterioration of its cash balance whilst it resolves legal disputes overseas for unpaid invoices amounting to more than €300 million. According to the sources consulted, the assets under analysis include the company’s two major headquarters in Madrid and Gijón, the proceeds from which could amount to several tens of millions of euros.
For the time being, the company has issued a sales mandate but has not specified which formula it will use for the divestment. In recent years, many of Spain’s large corporations have sold their headquarters through sale and leaseback contracts, whereby the company sells the property but remains as the tenant for a certain number of years. Ferrovial, Acciona, Prisa, Telefónica, Santander, Gas Natural and Endesa, amongst others, have all used this formula in recent years.
Duro Felguera’s office building in Madrid has been on the company’s balance sheet for two years, after it acquired it for €20 million in 2014. The previous owner was the real estate company GMP. The headquarters is located on Vía de los Poblados, in the north of Madrid, alongside the M-40 ring road and the Campo de las Naciones business park.
Duro Felguera’s headquarters in Madrid has a useful surface area of 13,791 m2. It is an eight-storey building – five of the floors are used for offices, two are used for parking and one contains an undercover space for storage and other facilities.
In Gijón, the company chaired by Ángel Antonio del Valle owns of one of the best complexes in the city’s Scientific and Technological Park. That building has a surface area of more than 9,000 m2.
Legal disputes
Duro Felguera will have to use the proceeds from its divestments to cover several urgent obligations. In December, for example, the company is due to repay a loan amounting to €35 million.
In parallel, the group is looking to encompass its financial commitments into the process of recovering its unpaid invoices overseas. Yesterday, the company stated that “it is holding negotiations with various credit institutions (Bankia, Santander, Popular, BBVA, Sabadell and CaixaBank) to adjust the maturity dates of its debt to bring them in line with the expected resolution dates of these conflicts.
In Australia, the group is fighting against one of its client, the Korean firm Samsung C&T, for overruns on the mining project Roy Hill. The court of arbitrage in Singapore calculates that DF may recover almost €140 million (the last invoice amounted to €40 million, plus €90 million in avals). The Australian courts are claiming €46 million, of which €9 million has been already recovered. In Argentina, Duro is claiming another €150 million for overruns at the power plant in Vuelta Obligado. Finally, in Venezuela, the Government led by Nicolás Maduro still owes the Spanish group €101 million.
Original story: Expansión (by C. Morán)
Translation: Carmel Drake