The CEO of Merlin, Ismael Clemente, took aim this Friday at the Government and the draft royal decree on data centers, criticizing the “uncertainty” it creates and that the allegations submitted by companies in the sector have been “swept aside with a wave of the hand.”
He also essentially took for granted that the regulation will come to light, despite considering its compliance “impossible,” and said that the company is “preparing for the worst” by using as reference the most adverse scenario, which would involve an additional cost of 863 million euros and a reduction in capacity in its MEGA Plan.
During the presentation of the results for the first nine months of 2026, Clemente recalled that the first version of the draft Royal Decree that sets the requirements for energy, environmental and resilience and digital sovereignty for data centers was a “disaster” and received hundreds of submissions that, according to the complaint, were ignored by the Executive: “Basically, they haven’t paid attention to any of them. They’ve swept them all aside with a wave of the hand.”
In that context, he questioned whether the second draft will be more flexible, labeled it “intrinsically abusive,” and referred to the figure of ‘strategic national interest,’ which he argues arises “to protect the Spanish bid for the European Union gigafactory from the application of the royal decree, because they know for a fact that it cannot be complied with,” so that “they have exempted it from complying with it.”
“They have left compliance with the royal decree solely in the hands of the private market operators, who are the bad ones,” the executive ironized.
Even so, he acknowledged that “the most likely” is that the text will end up being approved, since, in his view, it has become “a kind of ‘hold my beer’ for the Government,” which is using it as part of its election campaign.
The socimi estimates that the decree could receive approval from the Council of Ministers on November 17, 20, or 24, or else between November 29 and December 23, during the full transition period until the formation of the new Executive after the general elections of 29N, “whatever its political color.”
Contingency plan and extra cost of 863 million
Given this situation, the company “prefers to prepare for the worst” and has drawn up conservative projections. “We have assumed that the royal decree is in force and that it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. We have quantified what ‘capex’ we need to add to our current ‘capex’ in order to comply with the royal decree. That basically means that from there we can only improve,” Clemente explained.
Under that contingency plan, Merlin calculates an extra outlay of 863 million euros (“total BESS capex”), equivalent to 11.3% of the total planned investment, although it expects to recover around 35% of that amount.
The company also plans an adjustment in the total IT capacity of its MEGA Plan, which would be reduced from 724 MW to 704 MW. This cut is due to “problems” with the electricity supply at Arasur 4 and 5, in Bilbao, which has led to putting “both properties on hold for the time being” and compensating part of that capacity through a “repowering” at the data campus in Portugal, another project in Madrid, and the addition of a second development project in Aragón, in which they were already working.
“In this way, we come through this uncertainty surrounding the company relatively unscathed because of the effects of the royal decree,” the CEO concluded.
Customer concentration and the arrival of Javier Echave
Later, Francisco Rivas, director of the socimi, emphasized that another of the market’s “concerns,” which has gained “greater relevance recently” due to the “growing” weight of data centers in Merlin’s portfolio, is “the concentration of customers.” “And, more specifically, the situation of our largest customer to date, which is CoreWeave.”
At the same event, Merlin’s new chief financial officer (CFO), Javier Echave, until now general director of operations (COO) of Heathrow Airport (London, United Kingdom), was formally introduced and thanked for the “warm” welcome received.
“It’s only been nine days, but I already feel like part of the team. I’m mega-excited to join this team. And obviously I hope to meet investors and fellow bankers in the coming weeks and months,” he said.
Improvement in operating profit and upward revision of forecasts
The conference took place one day after Merlin released its accounts for the first nine months of 2026, a period in which it obtained an operating profit (FFO) of 274.5 million euros, 11.9% higher than in the same period of the previous year.
The FFO per share stood at 0.44 euros, which represents a year-on-year increase of 1.7% and allows absorption of the dilution associated with the capital increase carried out in March. Accounting net profit advanced 14.8%, to 669.7 million.
In addition, the company raised its forecast for operating profit for 2026 to 0.58 euros per share, compared with the 0.55 euros per share reported in July, an improvement that it attributes to the “solid” performance of traditional assets and to the “increasing” contribution of data centers.
Along the same lines, also driven by the 'data centers', revenues rose 12.9%, to 466.2 million, while EBITDA rebounded 12.5%, to 346.9 million.