"The company does not deserve feudal behavior"


Madrid

Updated:

Keep

Internal crisis in the largest real estate company in Spain. The board of directors of Merlin Properties has called an extraordinary meeting for this Monday at seven in the afternoon in which the dismissal of Ismael Clemente as CEO of the Socimi and the rest of the board will be discussed. A dismissal that would be promoted by the majority shareholder of the Socimi, Banco Santander.

In this climate of uncertainty, the management team of Merlin has released a very harsh statement (also supported by 185 company employees) in which it shows its "unconditional support" to Gracious and Miguel Ollero, both founders of the company. The council defends that the Socimi has a "predictable profitability" and a "formidable future ahead".

In addition, the leadership of the company launches a frontal attack against Santander. "Merlin does not deserve abusive and feudal behavior on the part of minority shareholders who seek to exercise majority control by stealing their participation in decision-making from the rest of the shareholders, saving themselves from paying the corresponding premium," the statement reads.

The directors of the real estate company thus abound in the legal doubts generated by the dismissal, since Santander owns less than 30% of the capital (22.2%) and market sources emphasize that these changes should be addressed in a shareholders' meeting, and not on extraordinary advice.

Likewise, the text urges the bank to launch a takeover bid and "pay the rest of the shareholders the fair market value" if it wishes to "control" the company.

The truth is that the market does not see the change favorably. The actions of Marline They closed the session with a drop of 6.34%, below nine euros per share. The company leads, by far, the losses of the Ibex 35.

The succession was advanced this Monday by 'El Confidencial', which highlights the friction that has occurred in recent months between Clemente, CEO of the group, and Javier García-Carranza, president of the company. García-Clemente is the representative on the board of Banco Santander.

In addition to Gracious, the entity plans to dismiss the entire management team. The advice of
Marline
It is made up of 13 executives, 7 of whom are independent and another 3 are proprietary. The bank's main shareholder had lost confidence in Clemente in recent weeks. In fact, the executive he had seen his ability to act reduced in the last councils. For example, the manager now needs the approval of the top leadership to approve operations of low economic value, a step that was not necessary before.

Merlin earned 254.4 million euros between January and September, which is 128% more than in 2020. The Socimi has an asset portfolio valued at almost 1300 million euros.

See them
comments

.



Source link