Such is the buyer of Caruna from Spain: Tens of billions in debt and big plans

A Spaniard buying an 80 percent stake in the electricity network company Caruna Iberdrola is not just any energy company.

It is an international giant that has invested heavily in wind power and other renewable energy, which skillfully uses debt leverage and wants its CEO Ignacio Galanin to become the world’s largest in its field.

Iberdrola is currently the third largest company in the IBEX 35 index of the Madrid stock exchange with a market value of 144 billion euros, which has almost doubled in the last two years.

Iberdrola is highly profitable despite having net debt of €50 billion, which is more than its revenue. Last year, Iberdrola made a net profit of more than six billion euros with a turnover of 45.7 billion euros.

Galán wants to whip up the result to seven billion euros between 2026 and 2028 with huge investments of 43 billion euros, which will primarily be targeted at electricity networks.

The company had more than 21 billion euros in liquid assets this year.

Iberdrola has almost 60,000 megawatts of electricity production capacity installed from Australia to the United States. More than 80 percent is emission-free, wind, solar or hydropower.

About half of the production capacity is in Spain, where the company also has shares in nuclear power plants.

Good return rate in Finland

The two billion euros invested in Caruna are a small part of the planned investments. The lion’s share is directed to Iberdrola’s main markets, which are, in addition to Spain, Great Britain, the United States and Brazil.

About 65 percent of the group’s operating profit came from outside Spain last year.

For example, in Britain, Iberdrola owns Scottish Power, a company that produces and distributes wind electricity.

Two years ago, it also bought the Electricity North West grid company, and says it now owns a total of 170,000 kilometers of the British grid. It is the second most in the entire country.

Globally, Iberdrola says that it already owns almost 1.4 million kilometers of electricity network.

In Britain, according to Galán, investments in the development of the network are to be made in cooperation with the country’s government.

Also in Finland, data centers and the general increase in electricity use create pressure to develop the network, says Galán.

Caruna has “growth prospects suitable for Iberdrola’s strategy”, he describes to the Spanish business magazine Expansión.

In addition, he describes Finland as a stable market where “the regulation in force allows a good eight percent return on the electricity network company’s equity”.

Strong growth in green production

Investing in electricity networks is a new phase in Iberdrola’s growth, which until now has come from the strong construction of wind turbines and other “green” electricity production in different countries.

The company has often been able to arrange financing for its projects by selling a minority stake in the finished capacity to investors while retaining the running of the production itself.

For example, strong capital investors have been found for the multi-billion-dollar offshore wind farms that have been built in the Baltic Sea on the coast of Germany, in the Martha’s Vineyard region in the United States, and off East Anglia in Britain.

Iberdrola calculates that the total value of its global holdings is currently around 160 billion euros. As long as the world’s electricity demand grows, net debt will not be an obstacle to continued large investments.

During 2025 alone, the growth investments made by Iberdrola were more than 14 billion euros.

Instead of funds, a professional owner

Caruna is being replaced by a professional owner in the energy sector who has been able to pull the right strings when starting to invest in renewable electricity production at the beginning of this millennium.

The strategy is strongly personified by CEO Ignacio Galán, who will soon turn 76. Iberdrola’s market value today is more than ten times higher than when he took over the company in 2001.

The 125-year-old Iberdrola, which still has its headquarters in Bilbao, Basque Country, is of course also green.

Already in 2019, during the UN environmental meeting held in Madrid, Iberdrola offered charging points for electric cars at the meeting place – while its competitor, the electricity company Endesa, was barked at by the protesters’ banners.