06/11/2020 - 9:31
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Alberto Fernández will receive this Thursday, at 18:00, Sergio Nardelli, the CEO -or former CEO- of the company Vicentin. The meeting was agreed on Wednesday and was part of a frantic negotiation between Olivos and the businessman, after the government ordered the intervention and promoted the expropriation of the company, one of the most important in the agricultural business.
Nardelli, who hours ago had a telephone conversation with Fernández, requested a hand-to-hand meeting and the President, through the governor of Santa Fe, the Peronist Omar Perotti, made a condition: that the company accept the intervention DNU signed by the Monday.
This is how it was: in parallel to the movement of Banco Nación, a creditor that has 20% of Vicentin's debt, the firm presented itself in the bankruptcy and asked to validate Gabriel Delgado - appointed by Casa Rosada - as the controller, the company that first he had refused to receive the government delegates , but then accepted them.
In the afternoon, in the midst of going back and forth, through a brief statement, the company reported that in order to "preserve social peace" and "avoid damage to the heritage," it contacted the auditors.
It was a turnaround: on Tuesday, the deputy inspector Luciano Zarich had not been able to enter the firm's headquarters located in the town of Avellaneda, in the north of Santa Fe.
Fernández, as Clarín reconstructed , had several talks with Nardelli and with "emissaries" of Vicentin, in addition to numerous conversations with Perotti, the governor of Santa Fe, who this Wednesday - to differentiate himself - circulated his proposal of "an intervention without expropriation".
The President accepted the meeting with Nardelli but, according to what he transmitted to your environment, he does not expect proposals very different from those that the businessman sent him in recent months.
"Since Alberto took office, Nardelli has sent emissaries for the State to rescue Vicentin. He approached several proposals, all referring to state intervention but avoiding expropriation," Clarín told top-level government sources. Fernández, assures his environment, listened and wrote down each proposal. There were, in particular, two on which the company - according to official sources - hammered on a recurring basis.
One, consisting of the State buying part of the Vicentin share package. Fernández discussed this alternative with lawyers and officials and concluded that it was not feasible for the State to acquire shares in a bankrupt company.
"The only viable and transparent way to take control of the company is expropriation," said the President.
Another proposal that came to the government from the firm was that YPF rent the operation of the port of Rosario, which is concessioned to a joint venture in which Vicentin participates to inject resources into the cereal company.
"I did not wake up and said 'today I am going to expropriate Vicentin'. We have been looking for alternatives for months but the company is in free fall and they only found a way; intervene and move forward with the expropriation," Fernández transmitted to a group of collaborators. Wednesday night in Olivos.
From the close environment of the President they warn that alternatives were sought but it was judged that the only viable one is expropriation, which is specifically established by law.
" It is not a political problem, it is an economic problem for the company: it collapses, international creditors want to speak to the state, job sources and 2,600 producers who Vicentin stopped paying are in danger," argue Olivos and add One line: it is a strategic sector that "cannot be left to external capital."
Perotti also argue that the company is not in the hands of international capital but suggests another way out. The governor acted as liaison for the talk between Fernández and Nardelli, did not participate in the expropriation announcement last Monday, but then defended Delgado, the intervention and praised the leading role of YPF Agro. In one detail: he never mentioned the word expropriation.
At their side, they talk about looking for a mechanism that allows the company to be rescued without resorting to expropriation. Perotti fueled this scenario on Wednesday. But late, from Olivos, they insisted that there is no hypothesis in sight other than expropriation .
In the Government they understand that Nardelli's resistance to expropriation is that he loses control of the firm and that he does not want that for fear that official "loans with loans granted" issued during the administration of Mauricio Macri will come to light. There is already a court case in this regard and the Ultra K Oscar Parrilli proposed creating a bicameral commission to investigate these alleged irregularities.
