Gas Natural firm changes name to Naturgy
Company CEO says moving its registered office to Madrid may not be “forever”
The Catalan-origin natural gas company Gas Natural changed name on Wednesday, and will be known as Naturgy from now on. The main reason given by its officials is that they seek to expand internationally, so that they needed to have a shorter, more international name. “We’ve considered that now we need a name which shows our international aspirations,” said its CEO Francisco Reynés just before the stakeholders meeting which took this decision.
The other argument used to explain the new name is that they do not want to be regarded only as a gas company anymore. “We want to be recognized as an energy company,” he said.
The firm was founded in Barcelona in 1843 with the name ‘Catalana de Gas i Electricitat’ in order to take care of the Catalan capital’s street lighting. Yet over the years it has become a multinational both in the supply of natural gas and electricity. Last October, five days after the independence referendum in Catalonia, the company “temporarily” moved its registered office from Catalonia to Madrid for the first time in its 175-year history amid the political turmoil in the country. Gas Natural claimed at the time that the move was owing to the “legal uncertainty” resulting from the situation in the country.
Moving back registered office?
In February 2018, Reynés took office as CEO and on Wednesday he was chairing the first stakeholders meeting in the Spanish capital. When asked about the possibility of moving back its registered office to Barcelona, he did not rule it out. “I won’t say that anything has been done forever,” he claimed. Its operational headquarters are still in Barcelona.
Changes to the company
Shareholders also approved other changes to the company’s structure, such as the simplification of business processes, and the reduction of the board of directors from 17 to 12 people. Reynés emphasized that more than half of the board are not actually shareholders in the company.
In keeping with the further internationalization of the brand, Reynés also affirmed the company’s desire to follow European guidelines for the commitment to clean energy. Naturgy’s president stated that the firm will prioritize “organic development” over “inorganic” development. “We have enough organic projects to guarantee the growth of the company in the next five years,” he said.
Despite this, he did not rule out inorganic growth altogether through mergers or takeovers of other companies. “We will prioritize the value over the size,” he added.
Other changes to be expected include organizational simplification and digitization of the company, in line with the changing times.