Pro-Russian positions and distrust of the government of Hungarian nationalist Viktor Orban seem to have weighed heavily in the Spanish government’s decision to block the takeover bid (OPA) presented by the Hungarian consortium Ganz Mavag to take control of 100% of the Spanish train construction company Talgo. The offer, presented in March, was tempting: 5 euros per share, a premium of more than 40%. Enough to value the operation at 620 million euros. The risk, however, was too great, according to the Spanish executive, which imposed its veto at the Council of Ministers on August 27.
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“Talgo is a strategic company, belonging to a key sector for economic security, territorial cohesion and industrial developmentthe Ministry of Economy summed up in a statement. “Authorizing this operation would involve insurmountable risks to national security.” Although the statement did not detail the reasons for this refusal, it denotes the growing concern raised in several European capitals by Mr. Orban’s continuing closeness to Vladimir Putin.
In making its decision, the government relied on a report from the Foreign Investment Council (Jinvex), classified as confidential, but which allegedly indicates links between the Hungarian consortium created specifically for this operation and Russia. Ganz Mavag is 45% owned by the Hungarian state investment fund Corvinus, and 55% by a company, Magyar Vagon, owned by an opaque investment fund, Solva II. Hungary had used a similar opaque vehicle to discreetly acquire the Euronews television channel in 2022.
Strategic company for Spain
The spokesman for the operation, Andras Tombor, was himself an advisor to the first Orban government (1998-2002). According to the daily The Countrythe Jinvex report was fed with information from the Spanish intelligence services, recalling the links between Magyar Vagon and the Russian railway equipment manufacturer Transmashholding. “It is no secret that in the past we have maintained industrial relations with a Russian company”, Mr Tombor acknowledged at a press conference in Madrid in July, while assuring that these links ceased after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to The Countryon the contrary, relations persist between Magyar Vagon and THM.
However, Talgo, a company founded in 1942 in the Basque Country, is considered strategic by Spain, if only because it has a key technology for national and international rail links: the automatic change of axle gauge, which allows high-speed trains to run on different widths of railway tracks. This technology is of major interest to the countries of the former USSR, where the gauge is different than in the rest of Europe, and thus presents a fundamental interest in the mobility, particularly military, of the Baltic countries, recalled in April the Spanish Minister of Transport, Oscar Puente, opposed to the takeover bid.
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