Hungarian group Magyar Vagon withdraws Talgo takeover bid after government veto

Hungarian Group Ganz Mavag (Hungarian Horse-drawn Carriage) has withdrawn its €620 million takeover bid for 100% of the railway builder TalgoOn Tuesday, the government rejected its proposal.

The decision was taken at a meeting held in Hungary on Thursday, according to a source close to the Hungarian organization. Budapest To be decided by the consortium’s board of directors.

According to these sources, the withdrawal of the offer should have been communicated to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) this afternoon, but is not expected to be communicated to the market until tomorrow. In any case, the decision has been made and the offer will be withdrawn, according to the same source.

This decision will allow the CNMV to dismiss the action, as the regulator needs to communicate with the offeror (Magyar Vagon) to proceed with the closing of the action, which was allowed to proceed a few months ago.

Continue your legal strategy

Ganz Mavag agrees to withdraw its takeover offer and maintains its legal strategy against the Spanish government’s decision, without giving up on making another takeover offer in the future Talgo.

Spanish Government The decision to enter Talgo was rejected by the Hungarian group last Tuesday.considering the existence of “insurmountable” strategic interests and national security reasons.

he Council of MinistersAt the first meeting after returning from vacation, it was approved Committee on Foreign Investment (Multi-ministerial body headed by a minister Ministry of Economic Affairs) opposed the takeover bid for “insurmountable” reasons of national security, but the government did not disclose that because it decided to declare the information in the case confidential.

The Hungarian consortium announced: I will appeal this decision wherever possible.in Spain and Brussels, according to sources in the organization.

However, the Spanish administration said it felt Supported by Brussels He said on Thursday when he rejected a takeover bid by a Hungarian public-private consortium. European Commission This is a decision specific to Spain and there is no need to communicate it to the community administration.

“The prerogative for these decisions belongs to the member states. We do not have any specific comment,” a community spokesman said. Francesca Dalbonni At the committee’s press conference.

Dalbonni recalled that European legislation allows member states to “restrict” free movement in Europe. European Union For reasons of public safety, though the measures taken must be “reasonable and proportionate”.

Skoda on the horizon

Once the road was clear, the Czechs Skoda Negotiations with Talgo to merge the business can now proceed as long as Talgo management is open to it.

The company rejected Skoda’s takeover bid twice because Skoda had no intention of controlling capital and was more interested in Magyar Vagon’s takeover bid. Talgo’s major shareholder wants to sell its stake.

However, once this move was rejected by the government, Skoda was the only company interested in Talgo and the only possibility for Talgo shareholders to exit the company or at least sell part of its capital and be able to expand its industrial capacity.

Talgo’s largest shareholder is Pegasus Transport InternationalBritish funds and other corporate groups owning 40.03% of the capital delta (Founded by two former Lehman Brothers executives) The Oriol family (descendants of the founder) and TorrealJuan Abeiro’s company. They all want to flee capital.

They own a minority stake Torrent Blasco familyvia TorrBlas (5%); insurance companies saint lucia (2.96%) and Norges Bank Norwegian (2.79%), etc. The rest are listed on the stock market.