From this Tuesday, the Madrid Stock Exchange hosts the celebration of 26th edition of the Latibex Forum which brings together more than 40 Latin American and Spanish companies with interests in the region. One of the panels organized this Wednesday included the participation of José Olivé, financial director of the Cox Group, the latest company to make the jump to the Spanish market last Friday.
The energy company’s chief financial officer said Latin America as one of the main countries the company focused on and more particularly in Chile, Peru and Central America. However, beyond this region, he also highlighted North Africa and South Africa as other markets Cox is focusing on.
The Spanish company also locates their desalination activity as one of the main activities that they can promote in these regions. “Morocco, for example, has a very ambitious desalination plan and hopes to have a desalination capacity of 3 to 4 million cubic meters per day,” Olivé explained. Developing this part of its business led Cox to build the world’s largest desalination plant, Ras Al-Khair, in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, as Olivé explains, 25% of desalination in the Arab country is carried out by Cox. “African countries have spectacular hydraulic projects: Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Morocco… In the next 12 to 24 months, there will be global public tenders for 20 million cubic meters per day for the desalination and water treatment,” he stressed. .
And it is precisely this water activity that has attracted the greatest number of investors to the company according to its financial director: “What I liked the most was the theme of water and the way we combine water and energy.. With every project you win, you get a captive energy project. You remove the water, retaining that water and projecting the captive energy and maintaining that energy. ” In this sense, Cox appealed to Amea Powers, one of the investors who entered the company with the IPO. It is an Emirati group present in North Africa, which, according to Olivé, seeks to combine Cox’s experience in the water with Amea’s roots on the African continent.
Finally, and regarding OPS, Olivé explained that investors’ biggest concern comes from dynamics. “Almost no companies went public this year and those that did saw a significant decline, not to mention companies that ended up going out of business,” he explained.
