Spanish explosives giant Maxam has been silent since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the congress on Tuesday, urging Spanish companies to leave their businesses in Russia.
The others mentioned, porcelainosaurs and employers of the Spanish capital goods industry, quickly came out to distance themselves from Russia. But not Max. The address of the Ukrainian leader caused obvious discomfort in the Spanish multinational. On Tuesday, when asked about his activities in Russia, he requested information by e-mail. “We are on it,” the spokesman said Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Margarita Robles told the SER on Tuesday that it was “unacceptable” that any company was operating with Russia at the time, and assured that it had no “record” of Zelensky-listed companies’ operations.
Government sources told elDiario.es that they were making demands regarding Maxam if there was a defense authority to sell arms to Russia. “We do not have information about this company at the moment, we are looking for it. These sources claim to be as effective as possible Irene Castro.
Founded a century and a half ago as the Spanish Gunpowder Society by Swedish Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, Maxam is present in more than 100 countries, with 140 subsidiaries in over 50 markets, more than 6,000 employees and 80 industrial facilities. The former Spanish Explosives Association (Explosivos Rio Tinto was another name for it) got its current name in 2006 and produces more than € 1,000 million in invoices a year.
The group provides blasting solutions for mining, quarrying and construction work; Cartridges and ammunition for hunting and sport shooting; Products and systems for the defense and security sector and production of basic raw materials for azochemical activities. Its most important division is explosives for mines and works, accounting for more than 60% of its revenue.
The second phase, the defense, combines Expal Systems SA, the former Explosivos Alaveses, the shelter of several former high-ranking officials, and one of Vox’s gurus. Several of the group’s administrators and the big people responsible for its expansion over the last few decades have a direct connection to Juan Carlos I.
In Russia, Maxam has four subsidiaries dedicated to the production of explosives for mining, with assets of about 23 million. The group opened its first subsidiary there in 2002. In recent reports, he cited as one of the milestones in the year ending 2020: “Expansion of activity in mining operations by more than 17 signatures and / or expansion. New contracts globally.”
In 2015, he claimed to have “manufacturing facilities in Samara, Kovdor, Kostomuksha, Chapeevsk, Achinka, Eruda and Kiyashaltir (the last three in Siberia)”. “Maxam Russia has more than 250 employees and provides blasting services and products (civilian explosives and initiator systems) to mining companies (such as Polyus Gold, Rusal, Sverstal or Eurochem) and quarries across the country,” the website explained at the time. . Of MaxamCorp, which was unavailable this Wednesday. The same thing happened on the websites of its affiliates and foundations.
In recent years, the company’s arms subsidiary, Expal Systems, has hired several former high-ranking officials from the Department of Defense and the National Intelligence Center (CNI). And is known to host Rafael Bardaji, Jose Maria Aznar, a former FAES leader and Vox’s board member who met with Steve Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump, on his board of directors.
Bardaji signed Expal in 2019. That same year, diplomat Jorge Dezcalari, along with former CNI director Aznar and former ambassador to the United States, joined the body. Dezkalar, who was already the director of Maxam from 2006 to 2008, resigned from that position in October 2020, according to the Trade Registry. The ultra-right formation guru continues as administrator.
With a presence in more than 50 countries, Expal is one of the main suppliers to the Spanish Armed Forces. Its president from 2020 is retired Admiral Jose Luis Urcellai Verdugo, who until August 2019 was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Navy. Ursley also served as Spain’s military representative to NATO and EU military committees in Brussels. And he participated in the development and implementation of a global strategy and in the creation of EU operations planning and management capabilities.
Urselle replaced another former admiral, Francisco Torrente, a former chief of the navy and a person very close to the king of Emeritus, considered the president of the expedition. Expal’s first chief executive is Jose Manuel Fernandez Bosch, Aena’s senior manager, when he was piloted by Maxam’s current chief executive, Jose Manuel Vargas.
The Honorary President of Maxam is Jose Fernando Sanchez-Junco Mans, who has led it for more than 20 years and still leads its founding. Director General of the Ministry of Industry in the 1980s, he is considered close to the Royal House. A former patron of the Asturias Princess Foundation, one of his eight brothers is anti-corruption lawyer and prosecutor Javier Sanchez-Junco, a lawyer hired by Juan Carlos I for his scandal-ridden legal cases.
Lawyer Jose Manuel Romero Moreno, the eighth count of Fontaine, the tenth Marquis of San Saturnino, and another man very close to King Emeritus, whose personal lawyer he had been for 20 years, were also advisers to Expal. Jesუსs del Olmo Pastor, a former Deputy Director of CESID who is now CNI, was also a member of this branch from 2006-2013, the last stage of Felipe Gonzalez.
“What we usually call revolving doors is very common in the military industry,” recalls Pere Ortega, Honorary President of the Dellas Peace Research Center and Professor of Conflict Studies at the Open University of Catalonia.
Expal’s latest reports cover the year ended March 2020. The pandemic has just started, it announced a loss of 12.5 million and its turnover fell by 42% “due to the lack of export permits in Saudi Arabia” to 131 million. 92% of this figure corresponded to weapons and ammunition and only 18.2 million were invoices in Spain. The accounts available in Insight View do not reflect the remuneration of their senior management. This brought him a warning from his auditor, Deloitte.
As for overseas activities, it was carried out “in different countries, with very different socio-economic environments and regulatory frameworks,” according to these reports. With subsidiaries in Denmark, the United States or Bulgaria, until June 2019, Expal had a subsidiary in Belarus, an ally of Vladimir Putin’s regime. It was called Expal Eastern Europe and was based at a military base in Recica. It was engaged in the production of military purposes, the management of weapons and ammunition (including demilitarization), the production of metals (such as aluminum or zinc), and other related activities and services.
“Expal does a lot in Turkey, the Arab world and the Middle East. But I do not think it exports to Russia, because it produces materials there as well. I do not see a possible relationship in the military field. “- says Pere Ortega, who at the time in Turkey’s delegation was” closely “watching. “With the war in Syria, there was a commercial deal in which they sold explosives that were going to Iraq and had to pass through Islamic State-controlled territory. And so, it is very questionable.”
This expert recalls that the protocols of the Council of Ministers, which approve the export of arms to Spain, are secret. We know only those reports that are submitted to Congress whose information is not detailed. But “arms exports from Spain to Russia are minimal.” He believes that Zelensky “means the foot of explosives for civil works.”
This is the strongest division of the Maxam Group, whose first executive piloted the partial privatization of Aena in Mariano Rajoy’s first legislature. Vargas was previously CEO of Vocento, chaired by Santiago Bergareche, former President of Cepsa Oil, former CEO of Ferrovial, and former CEO of Maxam and a former minority shareholder.
Sanchez-Junco has been on board the Ferrovial for more than a decade. The Honorary President of Maxam, whose membership in the construction company will be voted on Thursday, has for years held the qualification of an “independent” multinational del Pino family, despite the fact that his company Accrued millions of dollars.
Maxim, whose board member until 2019 was Juan Carlos I’s compatriot Jaime Carvajal Urquijo, who was also until 2019, has been associated with the world of venture capital for years. Its largest shareholder since 2020 is the US Rhône Capital Fund, which in January 2021 received the green light from the Council of Ministers to become a partner of the Explosives Group in Luxembourg through a Prill Holdings vehicle. According to Maxam Independent Syndicate, Rhone Capital will own 71% of the capital. Another 17.5% will be in the hands of three “family offices” (Europark, Mechamur and Opera Holding) and a series of co-investors, while another 11.5% will be in the company’s 162 employees, directors and former directors.
An OpenLux journalistic investigation into tax bars in Luxembourg, conducted by Le Monde, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Le Soir, McClatchy, Woxx, IrpiMedia and the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (OCCRP), warned in early 2021 that the only information available to Prill owners. The holding was a “two companies registered in the Cayman Islands,” a tax haven “affiliated with a US private equity firm, Rhone Capital, but little is known about them.” The “opacity” he described as “disturbing”.
Ron bought a stake in US company Advent in Maxam, which in 2011 bought shares in Spanish venture capital firms Vista Capital (a private equity firm of Banco Santander) and Portobello (formerly the Ibersuizas). Advent came to investigate the group’s IPO, but the operation was halted by a scandal involving Defex, a semi-public arms export company whose main private shareholder was Maxam, with about 22%, along with others. Such as Instalaza (which had 10.89%), which was linked to former Defense Minister Pedro Morenes.
Defex has disbanded after a very serious corruption scandal and millionaire commissions, and much of the case is still awaiting a court ruling. In this semi-public company, Sanchez-Junco himself was vice president. On its board of directors sat, among others, Admiral Francisco Torrente, representing Expal.
The Maxam Foundation, founded in 2006 and which has an important collection of paintings, is or is associated with, among others, Sanchez-Junco and Francisco Torrente, as well as Count Fontao. Also on the website of the Ministry of Justice’s Fund Registry is proxy representative Jose Luis L ლოpez-sur-Gonzalez, the former director general of the Merchant Navy, who on November 13, 2002 ordered the removal of the oil tanker “Prestige”. His brother and former General Secretary of Maxam, Rafael Lopez-Source, now deceased, is still listed as a trustee in this register.
Source: El Diario
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