DST rules out Efacec investments

The Portuguese group DST, which is currently negotiating with the government to buy the engineering company Efacec, has ruled out any intention of investing in the company’s projects through an application for EU ‘bazooka’ funding.

The company has ruled out investing in projects that Efacec, which was temporarily nationalised by the State, had applied for and was successful in getting funding on the back of the Mobilising Agenda for Enterprise Innovation. (Resilience and Recovery Programme)
In a communiqué published on Monday, the DST group led by José Teixeira emphasised that the “submission (for the Efacec-led projects) was the responsibility of its current board led by Ângelo Ramalho and its current shareholders”. (i.e. the State through Parpública and MGI Capital which has 28.27% and which in turn is held by the Group José de Mello and Têxtil Manuel Gonçalves (TMG))
Under the terms of an agreement for the sale of Efacec which is being studied by the European Commission, Brussels said it considered the deal was being supported financially by the State, so the government is now trying to renegotiate the agreement.
DST has already made it clear that “under no circumstance, aligned with the seller and the Banco de Fomento (Portugal’s development bank) will it accept being involved in a transaction that involves State support”.
This reaction to RRP investment funding support has arisen following opposition from the construction company Casais to the results of the second phase of the competition, complaints presented after learning that its investment of €47 million in the sustainable industrial construction area had been “excluded” from financing.
In this application, in which it alleges both “competition distortion and a monopolies risk” Casais was making a barbed reference to the approval of two projects led by DST and which are added to two from Efacec (The Alliance for Energy Transition) worth €342.6 million; and H2DRIVEN Green Agenda, €307.8 million) which was also given the green light.
On Monday, in addition to stressing it had nothing to do with the projects applied for by Efacec, DST emphasises that of the total €454 million investment in the two projects it is heading which were approved by the jury (R2UTechnologies, €215 million; NGS – New Generation Storage, 239 million), the group’s investment is €101.7 million given that these projects involve 105 entities: 42 from the scientific sector and 63 companies (of which 30 are SMEs).