BlackRock puts up for sale part of its stake in Naturgy valued at 1.8 billion

The Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) fund, which now controls the largest investment manager in the world BlackRockannounced this Wednesday that it is putting part of its stake in Naturgy up for sale and, to this end, will launch an accelerated placement of the 7.1% of the company’s share capital. These are 69 million shares valued at around 1.8 billion euros, according to today’s closing prices of the securities.

Following this divestment, which the fund has reported through a communication to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), the fund will go from controlling 18.5% of the capital to 11.4%while CriteriaCaixa remains at 24%.

The fund has mandated JP Morgan “to use reasonable efforts to procure buyers, through a accelerated placement (accelerated bookbuilt offering) aimed at qualified investors“, of up to 69 million ordinary shares of the energy company, representing approximately 7.1% of the share capital. Naturgy shares closed this Wednesday at a price of 26.16 euros per share, after registering a fall of 0.23%, meaning that at these market prices the value of this share package would be about 1,805 million euros.

However, these accelerated placement operations of large share packages usually end up closing at a discount. JP Morgan to act as sole global coordinator and the accelerated placement will begin immediately and will be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the placement contract (secondary block trade agreement).

According to the communication to the CNMV, the contract is subject to the usual suspensive conditions in this type of operations and the seller has assumed a commitment not to dispose of shares (lock up) of 90 days upon completion of the accelerated placement, subject to the usual exceptions applicable to this type of transaction. Once the accelerated placement is completed, JP Morgan will announce, “through an insider communication, the final terms of the accelerated placement, including the sale price.”

Criteria becomes the largest shareholder of Naturgy

With this divestment, GIP, which was the second largest shareholder in Naturgy after Criteria, La Caixa’s holding company, reduces its participation from 18.5% to 11.4%. This movement consolidates Criteria as the main shareholder of Naturgy, with 24%, although it dislodges GIP from that second place, which is now occupied by CVC/Rioja, with 18.58%, while the Australian fund IFM stands as the third largest shareholder, with 15.17%.

Market sources specified that this operation represents an orderly divestment of one of the energy company’s shareholders who has planned it this way. For some time now there has been interest of some of Naturgy’s shareholders, especially the funds, in exiting the shareholding of the company, once they considered having completed their cycle of stay in the company’s capital.

The investment firm, acquired by BlackRock last year, landed in the capital of Naturgy in 2016, after buying a 20% stake from Repsol and Criteria for about 3,802 million euros, through an agreement in which each of the partners divested 10% of the capital at a unit price of 19 euros per share.

On the other hand, Naturgy sources indicated that the increase of free float It is one of the key objectives of the 2025-2027 strategic plan, and that this operation reinforces it. In this regard, in June, the group chaired by Francisco Reynés successfully completed a self-takeover bid that targeted a maximum of 88 million of its own shares, representing 9.08% of its share capital, with a consideration of 26.50 euros per share, thus resulting in a total amount of 2,332 million euros.

Criteria, the holding company of La Caixa, GIP, CVC/Rioja and IFM sold 8.7% of Naturgy’s capital in the offer. After the takeover bid, the energy company’s treasury stock stood at 10%. The objective of the offer was to achieve a 15% level free float that would allow the group to return to the MSCI indices. In several treasury stock sales, it raised that free float to 18.7%, also completing its objective of returning to those rates in November.