Leading Spanish oil firm Repsol buys 10-percent of the company from Sacyr

Leading Spanish oil firm Repsol YPF has agreed to buy half of the 20-percent stake held in the company by Sacyr Vallehermoso in order to prevent it being seized by the builder's creditor banks.

Repsol paid 21.066 euros per share for its own shares, a 5-percent discount to the oil firm's closing price on Monday, for a total consideration of 2.572 billion euros.

The decision to buy its own shares was taken at a board meeting on December 18 after it became evident Sacyr's banks were not prepared to refinance the 4.9-billion-euro syndicated loan granted to the Spanish construction and services group to help it acquire its stake in Repsol in 2006. The loan was due to mature on Wednesday. Sacyr paid a total of 6.523 billion euros for its take at 26.7 euros per share, well above Monday's closing price.

As a result of the sale, Sacyr's debt with the bank syndicate falls to 2.446 billion euros, which its lenders have agreed to roll over for another three years. That was covered by the value of the remaining 10-percent stake, which at Monday's closing price was worth some 2.7 billion euros.

Sacyr also revealed it had dissolved its controversial shareholder pact with Mexico's Pemex in Repsol, which the Spanish oil firm had lambasted as a backdoor attempt to wrest control of the company.

Sacyr is now Repsol's second-biggest shareholder after La Caixa, which owns 12.9 percent. Pemex has a 9.5-percent stake. Sacyr's representation on Repsol's board will be reduced.

"The lack of an agreement between the banks and Sacyr Vallehermoso would have provoked a scenario of prolonged uncertainty for this company [Repsol] that would have been harmful for its share price, and would have had additional negative effects for its growth project," Repsol said in a statement filed with the National Securities Commission (CNMV).

"In addition, given the large number of banks involved and the heterogeneity of their plans and interests, a massive and disorderly sale of shares was foreseeable," the statement added.

Speaking in Moscow, where he was attending a signing ceremony for an agreement with Russia's Alliance Oil, Chairman Antonio Brufau said Repsol did not plan to sell the shares it acquired from Sacyr in the market but would instead consider offloading the stake to another company or stable institutional shareholders. "We bought the shares at an attractive price," Brufau said.

Repsol paid for the purchase of the shares out of the some 5.6 billion euros in cash and liquid assets it had on its balance sheet at the end of the third quarter.

"Given the growth strategy and the investment opportunities that they have, it's less likely they'll hold the position for a long period of time, but they certainly have the financial [capacity] to do so," Bloomberg quoted Jason Gammel, an analyst at Macquarie Group in London, as saying.

Repsol's deal with Alliance entails the two companies setting up a joint venture valued at $840 million (645 million euros) for exploration and production of hydrocarbons in Russia. Alliance will have a 51-percent stake and, Repsol the remaining 49 percent.