10/11/2020 7:41 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 10/11/2020 7:41 PM
In March 2017 Marcelo Mindlin, Damián Mindlin, Gustavo Mariani and Ricardo Torres, partners and main shareholders of Pampa Energía, announced the purchase of all of IECSA and its associated companies, the construction company that belonged to Angelo Calcaterra,
first cousin of the then president Mauricio Macri.
Calcaterra, in turn, had bought the firm from the Macri family in 2007. One of IECSA's main contracts
was the burial of the Sarmiento train, a work that it had won during Kirchnerism together with the Brazilian Odebrecht,
protagonist of one of the largest corruption scandals in Latin America.
Iecsa was renamed the Sociedad Argentina de Construcción y Desarrollo Estratégico (SACDE) and was led by Damián Mindlin.
The company is currently carrying out
a millionaire real estate development in Barrio Parque
despite the crisis
.
In these days, a litigation initiated by Calcaterra before the Arbitration Tribunal of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange has become a talk in the business environment.
The case was spread by Horacio Verbitsky's El Rohete a la Luna site.
It happens that
there are pending quotas that the Mindlin group does not make due
to the default decreed by Macri's minister
, Hernán Lacunza on August 28 of last year.
At that time, Lacunza when under the word "reprofiling" caused a default of the commitments that Argentina had assumed with the IMF and private debt holders.
Marcelo mindlin
According to what was published, Calcaterra pointed out that there was a
disguised clause that contemplated that if Cristina Kirchner returned to the presidency in the 2019 elections
, the price of that transaction would be reduced.
Those close to the Pampa group
deny that they had signed such a clause.
The IECSA share purchase contract provided for a cash payment, made in 2017, and a price balance payable in
six annual installments, beginning in 2019 and ending in 2024.
The contract provided that in the event of the occurrence of “Sovereign Default”, defined between the parties as the failure to pay any amount owed under financing taken or guaranteed by the National Government, given the negative impact that the default would have on the activity of the economy and the company,
the portion of the price pending payment at the time of the occurrence of such sovereign default would be extinguished by right ".
Calcaterra, according to those close to Pampa Energía, “
tried to change the definition of Default Sovereign,
and sent a counter document that was signed only by him and that was not signed or accepted by the buyers, according to which, Default Sovereign would mean that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will be elected President of the Nation ".
Thus they commented that "the buyers considered
this proposal unacceptable
, since it had no business reason, apart from the fact that the buyers did not want to be part of any simulated act."
This dispute is the one that is
being treated in the Arbitration Tribunal of the Stock Exchange.
As for the price, which was not reported at the time of purchase, the market
talks about a first installment of US $ 44 million plus another six installments of US $ 10 million
, that is, about US $ 104 million in total. is in dispute are the
five installments after the default of August 2018.
A year after selling the company, Angelo Calcaterra went to court and assumed "
full responsibility" when his former right-hand man at the Iecsa construction company, Javier Sánchez Caballero, was imprisoned.
That executive was mentioned in the bribery notebooks and Calcaterra assured Judge Bonadio and Prosecutor Stornelli that Sánchez Caballero was giving money to Julio de Vido's men "on his orders."
As for Pampa Energía, it is a group that is in the generation, transmission and distribution of electrical energy.
It does so with thermal, hydroelectric plants and wind farms.
They have co-control of Transener, which transports 85% of Argentina's electricity.
And they are the owners of Edenor.
By buying the business of the Brazilian Petrobras in Argentina in March 2017, Mindlin was
investigated
by the Brazilian justice.
This acquisition allowed them to keep Petrobras' oil and gas exploration and production assets in Argentina.
And they are joint controllers of Transportadora del Gas del Sur (TGS), which transports 60% of the gas consumed in the country.
They are listed on Wall Street.