enaga has integrated into the shareholding of its subsidiary Enagás Renovable Pontegadeathe investment vehicle of the founder of Inditex, Amancio Ortegawhich acquired 5% of the share capital, the company said.
In this way, Amancio Ortega’s investment vehicle strengthens ties with Enagáscompany in which he has been a shareholder – the main one with the State Industrial Participation Company – since 2019 after taking a 5% stake via the capital increase carried out to deal with the takeover of the American Tallgrass.
Enagás underlined that this operation reinforces the achievement of its objective, announced in the presentation of its 2022-2030 strategic plan, to bring new reference investors into its renewable energies subsidiary.
On July 20, Enagás has already closed the entry into the shareholding of Enagás Renovable from Hy24nail joint venture Ardian and FiveT Hydrogen, which represents the world’s largest renewable hydrogen infrastructure investment platform.
Thanks to a capital increase of the subsidiary Enagás, Hy24 acquired a 30% stake in Enagás Renovable via Clean H2 Infra Fund.
After these two operations, the composition of the shareholding of Enagás Renovable has Enagás as majority investorwith 65% of the shares, followed by Hy24, which holds 30%, and Pontegadea, with the remaining 5%.
The CEO of Enagás, Arturo Gonzalo, underlined “the importance of a reference investment group such as Pontegadea as a partner of Enagás Renovable, at a crucial moment for the development of renewable gases in our country, in accordance with the hydrogen and biogas route of the Spanish government and with the objectives of the European REPowerEU strategy”.
For his part, the CEO of Pontegadea, Roberto Cibeira, said that the entry into the capital of Enagás Renovable “consolidates Pontegadea’s commitment to the renewable energy sectorin line with other investments made recently by the group”.
“This operation also allows us to support innovation in this type of energy, contributing to the development of technology for obtaining hydrogen and biogas in Spain in collaboration with reference partners such as Enagás and Hy24” , did he declare.
Investments in the energy sector
With this operation, Pontegadea thus continues its investments in the energy sector where, in addition to the 5% it already holds in Enagás, He also owns another 5% stake in the Redeia group. -ex Red Eléctrica Corporación- as well as 12% of the capital of Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN), the operator of the Portuguese electricity network.
Moreover, in November of last year, Amancio Ortega’s investment vehicle has reached an agreement with Repsol to partner with the Delta wind farm by investing 245 million euros to take a 49% stake in the project.
Enagás increases its profits to 215 million in June
enaga achieved a net profit of 215 million euros in the first half, including the capital gains from the disposal of its stake in LNG Quintero in Chile and the entry into the shareholding of Enagás Renovable from the Clean H2 Infra Fund and deficiency of Tallgrass in the United States, which represents an increase of 1.1% compared to the same period last year, the company said.
In this way, Enagás has indicated that it is in line to achieve the annual profit target for 2022situated in a range between 380 and 390 million euros.
without counting these recurring effects of capital gains -which amounts to more than 185 million euros- and the Tallgrass depreciation -of nearly 134 million euros-, the profits of the gas network operator in June amounted to 164 million euros.
End of June, Enagás has a solid financial structure, with more than 80% of debt at fixed rates and an average life of 4.6 years. In addition, the company reduced the cost of debt to 1.6% and had a liquidity position of 2,956 million euros at the end of the first half.
Additionally, the company pointed out that the cash flow have generated a current “sufficient slack” to ensure their commitment to the dividend policy, which in 2022 is 1.72 euros per share, 1% more than in 2021.