Sidenor takes over from the rejected Hungarian takeover bid and offers to acquire 100% of Talgo

The Spanish train manufacturer Talgo has received an offer to acquire all or part of the company from the Basque industrial group Sidenor, as reported by the listed company to the National Stock Market Commission (CNMV).

The owner of Sidenor and promoter of the Mirai investment fund (future in Japanese) José Antonio Jainaga (Bilbao, 1954) intends to become the industrial partner that Pedro Sánchez’s Government desires for Talgo. Jainaga, together with Basque executives and the Pradales Executive, would be willing to contribute the 135 million euros necessary to buy 30% of Talgo from the Trilantic fund. The railway company needs to address a development plan that allows it to meet orders worth 4,000 million and Jainaga has the experience and equipment to take industrial control of Talgo.

Jainaga has found the support of other managers and, as he did to take control of Sidenor in 2016, he is willing to take control of Talgo. The industrial engineer from Bilbao has a net worth of around 400 million euros and through the Mirai fund he is forming a corporation of companies throughout Spain. Mirai is presented as an investment instrument “with a business model based on the acquisition of already excellent companies, but still with the capacity for improvement. Thus, the challenge is twofold: first, identify and acquire excellent companies and, second, be able to make them even better.

The purchase by Jainaga of 30% of Trilantic would represent another leap in the industrial growth of the Bilbao engineer. Jainaga began his professional career at Michelin where he became responsible for the vehicle tire manufacturing plants. But the Basque investor Sabino Arrieta signed him to place him at the head of Sidenor, where he was appointed CEO in 2005. The steel group was acquired by the Brazilian Gerdau for 440 million euros but the accumulated losses in a decade made him sell Sidenor to Jainaga for 135 million euros in 2016.