Laura de la Quintana Madrid

Madrid

Updated Friday, January 19, 2024-14:24

  • CaixaBank, Santander... and six other banks are risking 450 million in debt in the Grifols assets

The rating agency Standard & Poors has given a

boost

to the viability of Grifols after the doubts that have arisen in the last week and a half about its high debt.

S&P has ratified its rating, at B+ with a stable outlook (it falls within the junk debt rating for the agency) and believes that the sale of Shanghai Raas to Haier for 1.6 billion euros, the company's treasury (which raises it to 500 million euros) and an available

revolving

credit line

worth 600 million euros are sufficient to overcome upcoming debt maturities.

"

Our vision is that Grifols' debt will improve in 2023

(the annual result has yet to be announced, scheduled for February 29)

thanks to the recovery of the plasma market

, which will sustain sales and the growth of operating profit. We expect this improvement

to continue in 2024

, when the EBITDA margin increases to 22% and moves to a more comfortable debt below 7 times and falls to a debt of 5.6 times at the end of the year", points out the report released by the American rating agency this Friday.

In fact,

analysts consider that "the position" of the Catalan listed company will be "sufficient to cover liquidity needs for the next twelve months"

, starting because the first maturities of the bonds in circulation will occur between February and May 2025. for a joint amount of 1,800 million euros.

Grifols itself gave a conference call with analysts on Thursday of last week to clarify that the operation with Haier will be closed during the first half of the year and this money will go entirely to pay these maturities.

S&P's opinion plays in favor of Grifols when it is on its way to closing the second

black

week for the company after the accusations made by the Gotham City

hedge fund

about the manipulation of its accounts and the fraudulent use of Scranton, a holding company used by Grifols,

to hide part of its debt that amounts to almost 10,000 million euros,

according to the latest available data.

"We understand that the accusations of this bearish investor could make it difficult for Grifols to enter the credit markets, which could have a potential impact on its liquidity. However, we believe that, despite this, the group has a healthy cash flow. which reduces this possibility," says the S&P report.

This same week it was learned that the European Central Bank (ECB) requested Grifols' financing banks to provide specific information about their exposure to the company's debt.

Among them are Spanish entities such as Santander, CaixaBank, BBVA, Sabadell and Banca March.

The agency considers

the possibility that Grifols will not be able to meet its payments due to its high debt to be quite unlikely

.

It states that the pharmaceutical company has a financial commitment with the banks (

covenants

, in the jargon) not to exceed debt levels of 7 times and for the banks to execute the return of the available credit lines and demand their return, the company should have borrowed more than 400% of the available balance.