*In the latest sign of its privatising drive, the government led by President Javier Milei has announced that it is privatising state-run water and sanitation company Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos (AySA). Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni announced that 90% of AySA’s shares will be transferred to private ownership through a hybrid scheme that will be regulated by Argentina’s capital markets regulator, the Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV), which will “combine a national and international public bidding process to select a strategic operator and an initial public offering to open the firm’s capital to other investors”. He said that the proposal envisages that employees will continue as shareholders of the company within its current joint ownership programme which represents 10% of its share capital. He said that since 2006 (when it was last nationalised), the company has required permanent support from the Treasury, worth over US$13.4bn as of 2023, while at the same time there was a deterioration in infrastructure and staffing levels rose by 90%. Adorni said that under the previous Partido Justicialista (PJ, Peronists) administration led by former president Alberto Fernández (2019-2023), over US$4.8bn was spent on AySA, which he said functioned as a “campaign platform”, while of the US$200m assigned to public works, 25% went to the municipalities of Tigre and Malvinas Argentinas, both in Buenos Aires province, two cities from where its directors hailed.
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