Joe Duggan (Reporter)
A FORMER CEO of stricken energy giant Abengoa joined a US investment firm who made millions from his old company’s collapse, it is alleged.
Manuel Sanchez Ortega left Sevilla-based Abengoa in May to join BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm.
In August BlackRock, which has around €3.73 trillion of assets, took short positions against Abengoa on the market worth 1% of its working capital.
The deal made BlackRock millions and helped accelerate Abengoa’s demise with liabilities of around €25 billion in Spain’s biggest ever bankruptcy case.
Spain’s High Court is now investigating allegations of insider trading against Sanchez.
It will also look at severance payouts received by Sanchez and former Chairman Felipe Benjumea following complaints from Abengoa shareholders.
Same old, same old.
This was one of the sweet trades of the year – everybody I knew in finance was short Abengoa stock on trading platforms
If HSBC had approved the Gonvari deal like Santander did, the stock would have picked up and Blackrock (and “everybody else”) would have lost huge amount of money. May be a phone call from Blackrock to HBSC “convinced” them not to accept the deal! Everything is possible is this dirty world!
Banking – market rigging, socialises losses and privatises gains, in short legalised criminality. It’s worth people looking up the comments about bankers by the first three American presidents and Abe Lincoln – not pretty reading but spot on.
Blackrock made over $200 million by being short this stock as an insider dealer trade and they should have been prosecuted for insider dealing. You can see the position in their annual accounts.
This trade was pushed for all it was worth by runaway conman Nigel Goldman. He knew. If anyone ever asked him for a ‘tip’ while out and about with his cronies short Abengoa was the order of the day.