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Advance on Vicentin, the idea that Echegaray brought Cristina

2020-06-12T06:00:15.385Z


It was the genesis of a decision that generated a high political cost to the President. The ad cut a negotiation


06/11/2020 - 23:47

  • Clarín.com
  • Opinion

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was the ideological promoter to advance the original idea of ​​expropriating the giant Vicentin. The proposal arose from a technical job that the vice president commissioned a controversial former official. This is the former head of the AFIP: Ricardo Echegaray. A figure that granted differential tax treatment and accumulated multiple complaints of corruption.

Mauricio Macri tried - incredibly - to leave him in office and tried to take refuge - without success - in the Office of the Auditor General of the Nation. Echegaray was linked to the agricultural market, in his sad management at ONCCA: plagued by a lack of transparency. Cristina's request occurred a month ago. Echegaray put together a team and raised his conclusions a week ago. That “paper” of Echegaray included the following solution: intervene and expropriate Vicentin.

The information is confidential and circulated among a small number of officials: those who command the public bank and are Vicentin's direct creditors. Among them the Banco Nación.

That and no other was the genesis of a controversial decision, which generated a high political cost to the President.

Later, Senator Anabel Fernández Sagasti and her sincericide appeared at the conference: she thanked Alberto for "adhering to our proposal."

The announcement cut a long negotiation to save Vicentin and that stick on the wheel obeyed Cristina.

In January, an important emissary was the link between Vicentin and the Casa Rosada, to explore an agreement without violating the law and private property.

The intention was to empower the investment group and, at the same time, look for another central issue: sustaining jobs and avoiding a string among agricultural producers.

Sergio Nardelli -through that negotiation- had proposed a specific agreement: transfer part of the share package to pay off the million-dollar debt and jointly agree on a company with the YPF-Agro division.

The issue was also explored by the head of Banco Nación Eduardo Hecker and the Wado ministers of Pedro and Matías Kulfas. The trio discussed it with the President himself. Everyone saw it suitable. That was the original idea. An agreement and an association. Nothing similar with the sloppy announcement: an agreement with YPF under the coercive format of expropriation.

The President's decision generated a tremor in the Government and in the economy. Alberto became aware of the setback and tried to remedy the issue with a quick telephone dialogue with the Vicentin CEO. Last night they were face to face: Alberto and Nardelli try to put cold cloths on the scandal.

Intimately, a proposal is probed that includes concessions from both sides: ratify the intervention, but refloat the agreement - not compulsory - that was probed in January between Vicentin and YPF-Agro.

Last night, anyway, it was insisted that the bad steps already taken would complicate an exit to the conflict: any search for consensus collides with the fanaticism of the vice president. Cristina sent her infantry of adepts to complicate an agreement and, at the same time, impose the childish tale of "food sovereignty".

In the name of "oil sovereignty", production fell and YPF became indebted. Axel Kicillof was generous with Repsol and opened the doors to the trial in Manhattan. Pedro's Wado does not share that strategy. The minister wants a consensus agreement. Also Omar Perotti: the governor's phones were closed a day before the announcement. That is the political problem that unleashed a fury in the business movement and set off all the alarms for businessmen.

The uneasiness is due to a perception: the advance of statist ideas and economic control over the moderate logic of the President.

A week earlier, Alberto called the establishment in Olivos and assured them: "Vallejos' statist proposal is nonsense." Five days later, he was going in that other direction: expropriating a company that was negotiating an exit under the commercial laws. For this reason, it was -this time- the main businessmen who activated the toughest censorship declarations.

The "popes" link two things that are happening at the same time: the statist course of the last measure and the "super-control" of the dollar that hindered the importation of inputs.

Miguel Pesce slept and he lost - in a few weeks - a whopping 8,000 million dollars.

The reaction was to apply an exchange stock, which has an antecedent: it is even stricter than the one in force at the end of Cristina's government. It has already blocked about 1,000 companies from buying dollars.

The issue generated an uncompromising statement from the Business Association. The climate was reflected in a private dialogue that Roberto Murchinson had with Miguel Acevedo. Both had been a week before in Olivos and Murchinson transmitted to his colleagues the good image that he had taken of the President.

On Tuesday, when he spoke to the head of the UIA, he conveyed the opposite: disappointment at the difference between what was said and what was done by Alberto.

It was a few minutes before a convulsed virtual meeting at the manufacturing plant that Clarín was able to rebuild.

Luis Betnaza went with the plugs on end and demanded a severe statement against the Casa Rosada: "This is a constitutional violation against private property." From there a batahola was put together. Cristiano Ratazzi raised his voice and exclaimed on the computer: “I support Luis. The people know that the money is going to come out of the town. "

Everyone asked to speak to vent the anger. Daniel Funes del Rioja ironically: "For Copal, the story of food security is nonsense."

More than an hour had passed and it was getting hotter. The textile Luis Tendlarz became grim: "You have to set a limit, because they attacked capital." Miguel Callelo exclaimed a war cry: "This line cannot be crossed."

Adrián Kaufmann spoke of legal insecurity and it was there that Miguel Acevedo summoned to calm down. "We cannot," he said, "break the dialogue with the President."

Before, Ignacio de Mendiguren and José Urtubey had talked and put on cold cloths. The BICE head proposed that Acevedo speak directly with Alberto. The UIA issued a moderate statement. Acevedo believes that very hard times are coming and that now there is no need to burn the ships. At night, Betnaza reproached him in a formal note: "You did not comply with what the bases asked for."

The Vicentin question rocked internationally. It was in the midst of debt negotiation.

Martín Guzmán warned about the repercussions. Yesterday, the minister was giving the last stitches. Clarín confirmed that today Guzmán will announce the new counter-proposal for payment to creditors.

It would be of a present value of 49% and an additional for bonds tied to exports: the total would reach 53%. It will announce a similar proposal for dollar bonds under local law. This is an important change. Many Wall Street “wolves” would accept the payment plan. But membership would be below what is necessary and there is still no guarantee of closing the conflict.

Guzmán was cured in health. Last night he told the bankers: "This is the last possible offer."

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2020-06-12

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