Five months after the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, offered to help the indebted steel company Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA), the president reportedly does not support the company’s new shareholders, who are requesting deferment for more than US$500 million of payments related to public administration.
On Monday, a reporter alerted the President, in his daily morning conference at the National Palace, that “there is a very strong (social and economic) crisis in Coahuila, in the Hercules Unit, in a mine (of AHMSA) with more than a thousand miners who have already been unpaid for several weeks, 27 weeks. They are without salaries."
The president's response was “What we have faced is a refusal from Mr. Ancira.” Alonso Ancira Elizondo is the main shareholder of AHMSA, a company that, due to its insolvency, stopped producing steel since the beginning of the year and stopped paying its nearly 14,000 direct workers. Given AHMSA's relationship with companies in the steel sector and service providers in Monclova and the northern part of the country, jobs related to the steel company reach 60,000 workers.
Faced with this social and economic crisis, SteelOrbis requested last week from the Ministry of Finance (SHCP) an interview with the person in charge of negotiations with AHMSA, the Fiscal Attorney of the Federation, Félix Arturo Medina Padilla. However, the Treasury's response was that the attorney did not give interviews.
López Obrador offered the debt payment deferment for public entities of the federal government on the condition that Ancira Elizondo sells the company. However, an agreement to sell the controlling share package of AHMSA was signed in February by Argentem Creek Partners, on behalf of other investors such as the American Cargill Capital, the Texas Kickapoo tribe and a Chinese investor, which will be the operator of the Mexican steel company.
If the president accepts this restructuring of liabilities, the investors represented by Argentem will restart steel production, in addition to paying salaries, the new owners will invest $1.0 billion in three years.
SteelOrbis published on August 21 that the pending payment of taxes alone is for the equivalent of $408 million (MXN 7,139 million) and the third and final reparation payment to Pemex for $112.5 million, totaling $520 million (MXN 9,107 million).