Enel by HidroAysén: “You cannot do anything against a country”
The CEO of the Italian company, Francesco Starace said they will focus on communities.
“I understand that Chilean People does not like this project and we cannot do anything against a country (…) You can never build against the population. If you think so, it’s crazy. “The new chief executive (CEO) of Italy’s Enel, Francesco Starace, with those words, referred to the rejected project, developed by Endesa and Colbún, HidroAysén.
The executive, who yesterday met with President Michelle Bachelet in La Moneda and, later, with former President Eduardo Frei, took office in April Enel’s Position, which through Endesa Spain controls Enersis and Endesa Chile.
Starace said the company was yesterday notified of the decision of the Committee of Ministers which on June 11th gave the door on the initiative, so as the steps to follow are being studied. He added that one of the lessons that the process leaves is the need to review the work developed with communities across its portfolio of projects.
“We have to review all the projects that are well advanced and see if there are latent problems to be solved before to start building,” he said.
The executive said that another consequence of the stoppage of HidroAysén is about delivering certainties versus resources, for about U.S. $ 1,800 million, which reduced the capital increase of U.S. $ 6,022 million held by Enersis in March 2013. Along this line, he said the plans will be fulfilled, and what is sought is to buy out minority interest and acquire new companies.
Reorganization
Currently, Enel has over 900 subsidiaries worldwide, structure that complicates the group in terms of organization, so it is undertaking a restructuring process that will end between September and October.
“Putting Enersis directly in Enel is one of many alternatives, but not the only, and we will work on this,” said Starace.
He added that such plans have three main focuses: to solve the debt of some U.S. $ 60 billion that the group has to which assets are being sold around the world; simplify the structure of the holding, and achieve an overall reorganization. It also ruled that the changes include a corporate restructuring and said that the new organizational structure would be completed later this month.
Against this, he said that Chile, through Enersis, will remain being the head of the business in Latin America, in the short or medium term.
“The approach is to a simpler and focused on management to give us a very strong security organization to continue generating cash,” he said.
This morning, the executive will meet with the Minister of Energy, Maximo Pacheco, and will also participate in the inauguration of a smart city called Santiago SmartCity.
Source: La Tercera
