IAG limits its non-EU shareholders to 47.5% excluding the British

IAG limits its non-EU shareholders to 47.5% excluding the British

The 'holding' that includes Iberia and British Airways will force to sell those that exceed that cap that, according to their accounts, is the one that reaches today

  IAG materialized this Monday its intention, told by this newspaper over the weekend, of «remaining Spanish» and, by extension, European, once the 'Brexit' came into force as of March 29. The management of the 'holding' that includes the airlines Iberia, Vueling, British Airways and Aer Lingus was "convinced" of this, although it did not rule out recourse to the "legal obligations" to achieve it.

  And it is just what he announced to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV): _ a cap on the number of shares owned by individuals, legal or physical, who do not have a European nationality. According to the regulations that will apply from Brussels, it would suffice that 50.01% -both in ownership and control- of the airlines with licenses to operate within the territory of the EU were in the hands of a company resident in its partner States.

But IAG wanted to go further by limiting the foreign presence to 47.5% in both cases, which is precisely "the level reached at the date of February 11". Therefore, a priori, it would not be necessary for any of the current partners to sell their participation and the measure would only affect new operations.

In this sense, from IAG they warn that, according to the provisions of article 11.8 of its bylaws, after the publication of this announcement "no acquisition of shares by non-EU persons may take place". And even warns potential stakeholders that they would not issue the necessary certificate to make them effective, that is, they would be almost like 'wet paper'.

Those new titles owned by persons or companies outside the European Community would be considered "affected", so that the provisions of the statutes would apply to them. In this way they could "suspend their voting rights and other political rights", in which case they would have 10 days to "sell" those shares, that is, sell them to another one that does comply with the conditions of nationality.

And if that did not happen, IAG would be entitled, "by decision of the board", to acquire them for a price that would be the lowest of what would result between their theoretical book value according to the last audited balance of the group and the average market price of the securities. However, all these decisions of the administrators could come to be appealed and open a long legal battle.

Exception for United Kingdom

However, in the dome of the 'holding' estimate that it would not reach such an extreme because the limit set yesterday does not force sales of the current shareholding. But for this they have used a legal trick - validated today, but not when the exit of the United Kingdom materializes outside the Union -: "British people (not distinguish between physical and legal) are not and will not be treated as persons. EU "and," consequently, they are not and will not be subject "to such" restrictions ".

This "unless IAG notifies otherwise" and, for now, "has no plans" to do so. Therefore, the question is how much of your social capital would be now British. On the list of largest holdings provided by the CNMV, only the Lansdowne investment fund (1.6%), based in London, is included. It does not appear, however, the Scottish insurer Standard Life, which has 2.9%, the same as the German bank Deutsche Bank.

That census is headed by Emirates airline Qatar Airways, with 21.4% - it is also the third partner (9.6%) of the largest Asian airline, Cathay Pacific, while it controls the Italian veteran Meridiana- , twice the share (10%) held by a subsidiary of Capital Group, a global giant of pension fund managers and of US origin. They are followed by three other North American funds: Europacific (5.2%), Blackrock (3%) -one of the new "brick" kings in Spain- and Invesco (1.1%).

Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland are also considered "Member States" of the EU in terms of aeronautical regulation, but it is not known if there are IAG shareholders of those nationalities. Now, we will have to see if the answer of the 'holding' is considered sufficient in Brussels - that is, the British exception would not be accepted -, which could allow a period of seven months to adapt to its limits, just like to Ryanair and Easyjet if it was necessary.