Temasek buys 5 % in Spanish energy giant Repsol for $1.35 bn
04 Mar 2013
Temasek Holdings, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, today bought a 5-per cent stake in Repsol SA, for €1.04 billion ($1.35 billion), lifting its holding in the Spanish oil giant to 6.3 per cent.
Temasek, one of the world's biggest investors with over €115 billion of assets, paid €16.01a share, or a 1.7 per cent discount to Friday's close.
The Madrid-based company sold its entire portfolio of treasury stock at a discount and booked a €148 million loss on the transaction.
The sale comes a week after Repsol sold its liquefied natural gas (LNG) assets to Royal Dutch Shell, for $4.4 billion in cash in order to reduce its debt by more than half to €2.2 billion. (See: Shell to buy Repsol's liquefied natural gas assets for $4.4 bn – GAIL loses out).
Repsol has also earmarked other assets worth around $6 billion to divest in order to cut debt and avoid a debt-rating downgrade to junk status.
Last year, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's cut Repsol's credit rating to BBB- and said it may lower the company's debt one more step to junk unless borrowings were lowered.
Two days after it sold its LNG assets, ratings agency Moody's changed its outlook for Repsol to "stable" from "negative," citing progress in cutting its debt.
