Abanca records losses of 60.5 million for Nueva Pescanova

accounts of Abanca collect the result Exercise Nueva Pescanova, at the end of 2022, with losses of almost 60.5 million euros. This figure corresponds to the first nine months of the company’s business year, as it runs from March to March.

This Monday, Abanca sent its audited consolidated annual accounts for 2022 to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), writes Europa Press.

In June 2021, this financial institution acquired a package of shares of 0.28% stake in the company and took control of 97.76% Nueva Pescanova. At the date of drawing up these accounts, it indicates that it is in the “active” process of negotiations for the entry of a new partner.

Five days ago, the bank confirmed that it had reached an agreement to enter into the phase of exclusive negotiations with the Canadian Cooke group on the sale of 80 percent of the bank’s total stake in Nueva Pescanova.

Bankruptcy, rescue and sale: three lives of the Galician company Pescanova

Cooke will be the fishing group’s third owner in just 10 years

m. to dopeso

It was pescanovawhich was born in 1960 and was a pioneer in the fishing industry for more than 50 years, until the nearly 40-year-old president brought it to the brink of collapse, swept financial debt of almost 4,000 million euros. and it exists Nova Pescanova very young (born in 2015), created after a complex process of corporate re-establishment of the old parent company (Pescanova SA), which went bankrupt in 2013 and went bankrupt. The result of the spin-off was a new company, which inherited its predecessor’s valuable brand, most of its assets and almost all of its extensive staff.

From the beginning, the company was under the control of creditor banks (Sabadell, Popular, Abanca, Bankia, BBVA, CaixaBank and UBI Banca) which, after a generous haircut, emerged from Bankruptcy proceedings —of almost 2,000 million euros—, decided to convert creditor debt worth another 2,000 million euros into capital, a very high sum contracted in the last years of the presidency Fernandez de Sousa (he is on the verge of entering prison to serve a six-year sentence imposed for irregularities and financial crimes committed during his mandate).

It is worth remembering that first moment, because even then Abanca, which is now starting the process of selling the company, positioned itself in favor of seeking an industrial partner from the Galician fishing sector to manage Nueva Pescanova.

Abanca’s safety net

In the same line was the still powerful Popular, now defunct. But Sabadell, which was the majority shareholder swimming pool of rescue banks, with 22% of the capital, decided on the formula of the president of the board, which finally prevailed in the first four years of the new group’s existence.

At the time, Abanca had only a 5.4 percent stake, not enough to impose its criteria, but little by little it acquired shares from the bank’s other partners who were snatching their withdrawals, given the low expectations of a recovery of their stake. .

In the past eight years, the old Pescanova was once again listed on the stock exchange, turned into a holding company, without turnover and profit, on the verge of being shut down. But Nueva Pescanova also went through difficult times: from the mass flight of shareholders’ creditors, to the threat of a second bankruptcy, due to debts that are not yet in bankruptcy, until two years ago, Abance, which entered with exactly that 5 percent initial investment, took over reins of groups, capitalized debt of HRK 540 million (the subject had 80% of the bankruptcy debt, carried over from 2013, of 643 million euros) and took over 97.8% of the company from which it now wants to be freed, thus fulfilling the sale plan to the industrial investor.