MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish power and engineering group Abengoa (MC:ABG), in pre-insolvency talks to avoid becoming Spain's largest ever bankruptcy, has stakes in almost 900 subsidiaries and partnerships, a report said on Thursday.
The complexity of Abengoa highlights the difficulty faced by creditors of the Seville-based renewable energy firm to understand the extent of its debts, one of the first tasks they face as they embark on restructuring talks.
Almost a quarter of the 887 firms Abengoa has indirect or direct holdings in did not post any income over the last year, Spanish consultancy Informa D&B said in a report, sourced from their database of Spanish firms.
Almost half of them were located abroad, as it operates power projects all over the world. Abengoa also has a listed-subsidiary in the United States, Abengoa Yield (O:ABY), and big operations in Latin America.
Abengoa has so far declared 9 billion euros (£6.5 billion) of debt, but a source familiar with the company's finances told Reuters in September that creditors had a total financial exposure to the company of 20.2 billion euros.
Informa said only Abengoa and eight other Spanish companies, out of the 2,314 in its database, had holdings in over 500 firms.