The Government has granted a hundred large loans to Spanish companies between January 1, 2021 and June 20 of this year for a joint amount of more than 2,300 million euros. This follows from the official data of the Ministry of Finance reviewed by EL PERIÓDICO referring to all those loans subscribed by the different bodies of the State Administration in this period and whose amount is above 1.97 million euros.
The hundred operations have been subscribed by 69 companies, since some of them have formalized more than five different financing operations. A more detailed analysis of the records shows that ten companies concentrate 68% of the joint risk granted by the State in this period, of the aforementioned 2,333 million. They are the Técnicas Reunidas engineering company (340 million spread over various loans), the tour operator Avoris (320 million), the hotel company Hotusa (241 million), the airline Volotea and the industrial group Tubos Reunidos, followed by another airline (Air Nostrum). , the Duro Felguera engineering and capital goods group, the Wamos airline, the Hesperia chain and the Plus Ultra aviation company. Between the ten they accumulate a risk with the State of more than 1,600 million.
The preponderance of these ten is a consequence of the difficulties that the sectors in which they operate have gone through since the start of the pandemic until now. Those most affected by coronavirus restrictions, like large industries and tourism service companies, had to ask for help from SEPI’s Solvency Support Fund for Strategic Companies. This mechanism, endowed with a total of 10,000 million euros, started in July 2020 and will be in force until the next day 30. Its objective is to provide temporary public support to strengthen the solvency of non-financial companies that are considered strategic for the national or regional productive fabric. Among the hundred large loans analyzed is the last one approved by SEPI the day before yesterday, to the Basque company that manufactures technology for renewable energies, Vicinay Marine.
The 2,333 million granted in this analyzed period include other financing operations for companies, not only SEPI bailouts, such as thehe credits granted for innovation through the Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTi). Various operations signed by the agency with the Catalan company Hipra, for more than 17 million euros as a whole, fall into this last category. The company is currently developing what will be the first coronavirus vaccine designed in Spain. The defense group Airbus also has loans from the CDTI, as does the meat company ElPozo Alimentación.
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State funding also benefits large corporations such as Telefónica (within the framework of the New Generation Broadband Extension Program), Repsol and Renault (innovation in both cases), among others.
At the opposite extreme, but much more minority, are the credit operations signed by SMEs, according to data from the registry of the Ministry of Finance. The loan with the smallest amount among the one hundred analyzed is that of the Andalusian fertilizer company Abonos Jiménez, for 1.97 million euros.