Enrique Eskenazi is gone for good from YPF. On May 16 he defaulted on term and interest payments for a $1 billion dollar loan that he had taken out, using YPF dividends as collatoral. Now various banks are demanding 19% of Askenazi's stake in YPF as collateral against debt that Eskenazi amassed. Also resulting from this loan settlement, Mexican billionaire and world's richest man Carlos Slim also received an 8.4% stake in YPF.
In addition to demanding 19% of Eskenazi's stake in YPF, the banks are asking him for 237 million euros given that this remaining 6% was taken on already by Repsol after Eskenazi lost his voting rights for defaulting on loan payments. Still, sources from the oil company explained to elEconomista that they will make a claim on the shares formally later this week, which means that Grupo Petersen and the Eskenazi family would no longer own shares in YPF.
With Eskenazi defaulting and the banks, led by Credit Suisse, forcing him to pay down the debt, Slim gets $32.9 million dollars in American Depository Shares (ADS) at a price of $11.12 dollars per share (8.8 euros). So Slim has only paid 365.8 million dollars (290 million euros).
This price is way below what Eskenazi paid, who in his latest purchase of 10% of the company forked over around 1.3 billion dollars.
The purchase was completed by the real estate company Carso (6.9 million shares) and Slim's financial group Inbursa (25.9 million shares). Curiously, the latter company, which led the deal, owns 20% of La Caixa, and Isidre Fainé sits on its board.
Coincidentally, La Caixa, the primary shareholder in Repsol, once again owns a piece of YPF. Both Repsol and La Caixa refused to make any comments about Slim?s investment.
