Blackrock, Vanguard, Dimensional Fund and Norges are some of the most powerful investment entities in the world coinciding with Acciona, whose capital outside the control of the Entrecanales family amounts to 45%. Many view corruption as a red line, at least on paper, when investing capital in a listed company, which is why internal sources recognize the risk of investor flight as Acciona is at the center of investigations into a plot to pay bribes to senior PSOE officials. Alleged deliveries in exchange for public works projects. Despite the evidence collected by the Guardia Civil, the company has no intention, at least for the moment, of offering explanations to the market. And silence prevails among the funds on the next steps.
The stock market price of the construction and renewable energy group has collapsed by 12% since, on the 14th, the Guardia Civil entered the company’s offices in Madrid and Bilbao, on the orders of Supreme Court magistrate Leopoldo Puente, in search of documentation that could shed light on the incident. The Cerdan case. Despite the disaster of this black week, it was decided to inform only the investor or analyst who requests it. Neither public details before the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) nor any private meeting to expose the extent, minor or major, of the case.
This is the same strategy followed last June, when a first report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard was published on the 12th. In its almost 500 pages, it reported the implementation of important works by the Adif and the General Directorate of Motorways, for the benefit of Acciona, with the alleged intervention of the former Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, his advisor Koldo García, and the former organizational secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán. Evidence has also been accumulated against the president of ADIF, Isabel Pardo de Vera, or the head of the highways, Javier Herrero.
Acciona allowed two weeks to pass, until the shareholders’ meeting on June 26, to dissociate himself from any connection with the conspiracy in front of the investors. Then he spoke of Servinabar (a company that appears as an intermediary in the soundbites) as a simple collaborator in an ecosystem of 30,000 partners and suppliers, and the possible solutions with this Navarre construction company were limited to the solitary action of the company’s construction director in Navarre, Fernando Merino, fired in 2021.
The strategy of reducing communication to the market to a minimum was not a bad one. The stock market storm soon passed for Acciona. The value of the stock fell from 148 to 145 euros in the period before the summer and quickly recovered ground to reach the highest level of the year at 198.1 euros on the 13th. At yesterday’s close the stock fell to 174.1 euros.
The fresh blow to the company’s credibility caused by the UCO report released last week threatens the price once again, and stock market analysts have so far given little thought to the ordeal the group could face. In fact, among the analysis houses that follow Acciona, seven recommend selling shares, while five recommend maintaining positions and three defend the purchase decision. The reason for most negative recommendations is a price higher than the value they give the company, not the price The Cerdan case.
The possibility of an investigation weighs on the future of Acciona, the prosecution of alleged bribes amounting to 2% of the budget of various public works awarded, and even a conviction as subsidiary civil liability. Podemos has recovered, with the new UCO report, the request to the Government for precautionary suspension of Acciona from contracts with the Administration.
Despite the endless evidence collected by the UCO, with audio, photos, emails and WhatsApp messages, Spanish legislation only provides for a veto on public procurement for a maximum of three years, in the event of a final ruling, as included in the 2015 Law on Public Sector Contracts (articles 71 to 73). For a precautionary ban, with a court order and from the first phase of the investigation of a criminal case, it would be necessary, according to legal sources, to reform article 33.7 of the Criminal Code and article 71 of the aforementioned Contract Law.
three heads
Acciona has three people under investigation in the case against Santos Cerdán at the Supreme Court. The first, director of Construction in Spain until 16 June, Justo Vicente Pelegrini, was fired for “lack of diligence in the exercise of his management responsibilities”. This measure does not prejudice greater culpability on the part of an important figure in the house, about whom there are now serious suspicions once the UCO has provided evidence of his direct relationship with Cerdán.
Two other Acciona managers, Tomás Olarte Sanz and Manuel José García Alconchel, are also investigated in the case. The former is Acciona Construction’s manager for the North Zone, while the latter is responsible for the South Zone. The two have been provisionally suspended by the company, which has expanded the scope of its internal investigation, initially launched in June to determine deficiencies in its regulatory compliance systems.
Olarte began serving Entrecaneles in 1991, as project manager for Entrecanales and Tavora, and then rose through the Acciona organization until he became responsible for the Northern zone in 2010. García Alconchel, for his part, has been responsible for Africa since 2014, to which he added responsibility for the market in southern Spain seven years ago.
