Government wants to conclude the reprivatisation of Efacec by the end of November

  • ECO News
  • 7 September 2021

Efacec's reprivatisation process will have a third phase so that the offers can be improved. The Executive expects to conclude the process at the end of November.

There are two offers that are on the table being negotiated for the acquisition of the state’s position in Efacec. The process has entered the third phase, for these two offers to be improved, as decided in the Cabinet on Thursday. And although the deadline may drag on until the end of the year, the government expects that the sale of 71.73% of the company will take place until the end of November, according to ECO.

ECO had already advanced first-hand that considering the quality of the offers, the government was going to extend Efacec’s reprivatisation process for a third phase to negotiate better conditions with the two Portuguese groups DST and Sing-Investimentos Globais, the only ones that presented binding offers by the deadline of July 19.

The Cabinet’s statement was explicit on the purpose of this third round of the reprivatisation process: “to enable the submission of improved and final binding offers”. But the idea is not to perpetuate the negotiations, which are being conducted by Parpública. The end of the year is the deadline, but the government wants to finish earlier.

In the origin of this additional need for negotiation is the degradation of Efacec’s financial situation, which led the two Portuguese groups to submit bids for the State’s shareholder position with marginal values, between €1 and €1 million, according to ECO, and both consider that an investment plan of tens of millions of euros will be necessary to recover Efacec.

The national candidates are also demanding public guarantees that could turn into more public investment in the company, after the guarantee of a €70 million loan that has already been spent. As far as ECO has discovered, the government already admits that it may be necessary to “split” Efacec between the mobility and industrial areas, to limit the risks for the state in the operation.