Troubles for El Corte Ingles: minority shareholders oppose Qatar’s entry

The investment society of family Areces Galán, Ceslar Corporation, which includes the shares of the family of Luis Areces and has almost 10 percent of El Corte Inglés, fiercely opposes the entry of the new Qatari partner.

In mid-July, El Corte Inglés sealed the entrance of a foreign investor for the first time in its history. This is the Qatari royal family, on behalf of Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thaniy, former prime minister of the Qatar emirate, which acquired a 10 percent of the company's capital for 1,000 million euros.

Ceslar Corporation now points out that the agreement that allows Qatar’s entry in the department store chain involves removing the pre-emption for traditional shareholders, as published by 'Expansion'.

In addition to that, the owners of the 10 percent of the largest Spanish department stores operator emphasise that El Corte Inglés has allowed the entry of Primefin group "at a price well below the value of the latest estimates of the group" and added that it reserves "the adoption of all measures that help bring transparency to the operation and mainly the commission managed by an entity domiciled in a country of high tax opacity ".

In fact, as has been told by 'ABC', and has recorded at the Shareholders Meeting held on July, 10, the operation was approved even if both Ceslar Corporation as Mancor Group voted against.

Primefin’s entry in El Corte Inglés’ capital, an "unacceptable loss of value"

Ceslar Corporation explains that this operation "is nothing more than a manoeuvre to corner the traditional shareholders and get shield from the power of the current management team" and that is an "unacceptable loss of value" for shareholders in the company.

The Areces Galán’s society is concerned that the transaction was made at a price "below all estimates made" on the value of El Corte Inglés and "far short" of the 18,000 million valuation given by Tinsa on the group’s real estate assets alone, back in 2013. Ceslar also disagrees on the real percentage acquired by the sovereign Qatari fund, assuring that the percentage shall be 10 percent but "it will receive between 12.5 percent and 15.25 percent of the company."

It is worth of recalling that, on a related note, El Corte Inglés paid 17 million euros to Noganoir Capital, a Singapore-based company responsible for finding an investor willing to acquire 10 percent of the share capital of the Spanish group, as reported earlier this week by 'Vox populi '.

Ceslar has also criticised the payment of this fee "worth of millions of euros" to mediate in the operation, especially because "it is based in one of the countries with greater fiscal opacity and outside the control of the European regulatory framework." He adds that "none of the directors [of El Corte Inglés] could who was behind that company and not even their name".