Before proposing the purchase of Agro Nitrogenados, Emilio Lozoya Austin went to the Board of Directors of Petróleos Mexicanos with an investment proposal, inherited by his predecessor, Carlos Treviño: to dispense five million euros to assume share control of Hijos de J. Barreras .
Based in Vigo, the company was going through a critical stage, without customers to fulfill its substantive tasks, which was none other than building cruise ships and tankers.
It will soon be a decade since the start of this unusual adventure. Alberto Núñez Feijoo, president of the Xunta de Galicia, had closed the deal with Felipe Calderón to transfer the know-how of the centennial shipyard to the Mexican oil company, which would leave the exploration and exploitation of the offshore fields to the private initiative.
Support for these activities would be one of the branches of the new productive company of the State. And the maintenance of the fleet of 16 ships was a priority. By then – April 2013 – the feasibility studies and a due diligence had already been ordered, by an independent firm that warned without nuances about short-term problems that darkened the future of HJB, unemployed since July 2011, for a commercial bankruptcy procedure.
Six months later, Pemex became the new majority shareholder of the Viguense assembly company and the Lozoya team – led by its advisors coordinator, Carlos Roa, and the corporate director of alliances and new businesses, José Manuel Carrera Panizo – presented their plan : orient the shipyard production to the construction of two flotels, which would be deployed in the Campeche Sound.
The acquisition of the share package gave Pemex the right to appoint the General Director and the Comptroller, and that the Administration Contract would have the right of veto.
Until mid-2019 there was dimensions of this failure, when the Mexican oil company communicated to the Galician authorities the annulment of the appointment of José García Costas as president of the company. Then a team led by Admiral Mario Alberto Gasque Peña, attached to the Secretary of the Navy, arrived to carry out an audit. Two months earlier, a federal judge had authorized Lozoya Austin’s arrest warrant.
In less than five years, Pemex went from being a client of HJB to a majority partner, but never received dividends or profits. Quite the opposite. In mid-2020, advised by the Cuatrecasas Goncalves Pereira law firm, PMI was left out of business and bankruptcy, after transferring its rights to the Malta-based firm Cruise Yacht Yard Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the Ritz Carlton Group.
The Pemex subsidiary received a net payment of 5.1 million euros, the same amount as the initial investment. An exchange profit of 40.8 million pesos, but the ASF observed that the return that would have been generated during the investment period, for example, in a risk-free instrument (10-year Mexico Bond), would have been 47.7 million pesos, therefore, when comparing both figures, a loss of 6.8 million would be determined.
The divestment in the Vigo shipyard generated 382.1 million pesos of income, but required expenditures of 247.9 million, according to the audit of the usufruct constitution and Sale and Purchase Option contracts. In the end, the net cash flow in favor of the Pemex subsidiary in Europe was 134.1 million pesos.
Once that adventure was concluded, Octavio Romero Oropeza went to the National Palace to report on the events and reveal that he had filed a complaint with the FGR against Lozoya Austin, for the possible crime of fraudulent administration.
Side effects
AFTERMATH. Lack of expertise led a large tonnage catamaran to sail uncontrollably in the Campeche Sound, during the first weekend of 2022. Apparently it was not towed in time to safeguard it from the strong swells caused by cold front number 19 and when it was taken to Seybaplaya, its moorings burst to be adrift. The Permaducto company, a subsidiary of Protexa, will be in charge of solving the accident, the authorities have announced, but it turns out that the operator of the boat is the German Harren and Partner Transport and Instalation, a firm indicated by some sources. to Emilio Lozoya.
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Journalist and columnist for El Economista, author of Doña Perpetua: el poder y la opulencia de Elba Esther Gordillo. Elba Esther Gordillo against the SEP.
