Pablo Ibáñez
06/11/2020 - 23:02
- Clarín.com
- Politics
"Rescue" became the key word, the format of a negotiated solution to save the Vicentin company with the intervention of the State, after the expropriation announcement.
Alberto Fernández received this Thursday in Olivos Sergio Nardelli, the CEO -or former CEO- of the cereal company, an impact firm in the agro-export market, which accumulates a multimillion-dollar debt and left a string of creditors , between banks and producers.
- I am not a friend of the expropriations but we have no option- said the president, as Clarín reconstructed , and authorized that alternatives be analyzed.
Fernández was escorted by the Minister of Economic Development Matías Kulfas and added two actors: Luis Basterra, from Agriculture, and Vilma Ibarra, his legal "guardian".
On Thursday night, the government agreed with one aspect: the intervention, led by Gabriel Delgado, made it firm. A few hours before the Olivos meeting, Luciano Zarich, the deputy auditor, was able to enter the Vicentin headquarters in Avellaneda and signed the formal transfer report with company executives.
"It was important to take control to prevent them from continuing to make a disaster ," a front-line official told Clarín and said that a period of analysis and talks is opening .
Translation: for Fernández, plan A continues to be an expropriation law because it does not warn of any other legally viable alternative to rescue the company.
After hectic days, the dialogue that started this Thursday will analyze options. A fact not less: all imply the direct involvement of the State.
Fernández set another parameter. "It is not an alternative to sell to a foreign group," he assured and emphasized that Vicentin's main claims are in the hands of state banks, particularly the Nation.
Omar Perotti, the governor of Santa Fe, mediated between Olivos and the firm, managed yesterday's meeting and conveyed Fernández's conditions to receive Nardelli: that the company accept official intervention.
There was another gesture by Fernández: at the end of the meeting, which lasted just under two hours, Perotti served as spokesman. "The President has been very clear: the objective is to rescue the company," he said.
Santa Fe Omar Perotti, this Thursday when he retired from Olivos.
Perotti - supporter of a bailout without expropriation - assured that "if overcoming alternatives appear, the President is willing to listen to them", when asked about the expropriation.
Attention now turns to YPF. Vicentin's main proposal is that the state oil company disembark, via YPF Agro, at the grain company: take over the management, inject capital for the salvage and face a negotiation with the 2,600 creditors.
Nardelli will detail the proposal on Friday in a meeting with Kulfas, Delgado and YPF President Guillermo Nielsen. "We are going to listen to them, but YPF is prevented from doing so by statutory reasons , " an official source told Clarín .
"You have to put it to work and for that you need a lot of money," added the official.
After extreme secrecy with which he kept Monday's announcement, Fernández incorporated other actors. One is Perotti. The other is Basterra, who will be the interlocutor with the cooperatives and small producers that appear on Vicentin's prolific list of creditors.
Perotti is another essential piece: in the political variable, the governor was in an awkward position because although he won the province, it is a nucleus where the opposition has muscle and "expropriation" feeds ghosts.
He operated for the meeting between Fernández and Nardelli to take place, approached positions and was the transmitter of orders: by case, he communicated that the condition of the President to receive it was that the company accept the intervention provided by DNU and recognize the delegates of the government.
In the talk, Fernández listened to Nardelli's proposals and asked him to collaborate with the intervention. Vicentin's CEO promised that "they will show all the documentation" and that they will work with Delgado.