Indra has extraordinarily summoned its board of directors at three this afternoon, after the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI) demanded that the conflict of interest be clarified existing in the company. The origin of this conflict is that Indra itself is promoting the merger with Escribano Mechanical & Engineering (EM&E), a company of which the current president of Indra, Ángel Escribano, is a co-owner and who, furthermore, appears as the second largest shareholder of the technology and defense group, with 14.3% of the capital.
In the company's board of directors, both Ángel Escribano and his brother Javier participate, the latter representing EM&E. The body will meet this afternoon extraordinarily to specifically address this matter, which has generated suspicions in the Government and in SEPI, main shareholder of Indra with 28% of the capital.
In a statement sent on Wednesday night to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), the president of SEPI, Belén Gualda, urged to clear the conflict of interest before evaluating the possible merger with EM&E, without proposing, however, a concrete way to resolve it.
Two possible exits
Sources from the sector consulted by Europa Press point out that, in practice, only two exits are contemplated: that Ángel Escribano leaves the presidency of Indra or that the integration of EM&E is discarded, an alternative that would clash with the objective of configuring a national champion in the defense industry.
SEPI has stressed that “a potential operation with EM&E “should not be conceived as an instrument to resolve the conflict of interest, nor should it be influenced by it; on the contrary, this conflict should be cleared before undertaking the analysis of the operation”.
“For this reason, SEPI has requested that this conflict be resolved in order to be able to continue the analysis of the operation and adopt a decision on it that is most advantageous for Indra,” concluded the note sent by Gualda to the stock market supervisor.
What the Government says
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has indicated that SEPI is working with the defense and technology company to clarify the “alleged conflict of interest problem” that has arisen at Indra. “That is an issue that has to do with an alleged conflict of interest problem and it is SEPI who is working at Indra on this matter,” he indicated in statements to the press upon his arrival at the European Council.
On the other hand, the First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, has indicated that this conflict of interest is an element that "was not at the origin, from the part they knew", in reference to the moment in which the Government gave its approval to the appointment of Ángel Escribano as president of Indra.
“The decision SEPI takes is that there is a conflict of interest and it cannot be done (the operation) in these conditions,” Montero has pointed out, who considers that it will have to be Indra's own board of directors that articulates the way out of this situation.
After these reports and official statements became known, Indra's shares are once again suffering in this Thursday's stock market session, with a fall of more than 7%, to 53 euros, in a context of generalized declines in which only two selective stocks traded positively and with the Ibex 35 falling 2.88%.