SEPI: Get to know SEPI

The headquarter of Group SEPI is located in Velázquez street in Madrid.

Public law entity

Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) is a Public Law entity, whose activities follow the private legal system, and which is attached to the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations - Ministerio de Hacienda y Administraciones Públicas-, and reports directly to the Minister.

It was created in 1995, by Royal Law Decree 5/1995, on June 16th, validated on January 10th, 1996, through Act 5/1996 for the Creation of Certain Public Law Entities. Its creation took place, within the framework of the process for the reorganization and modernization of the state-owned entrepreneurial sector, in order to manage the industrial shareholdings owned by the State and which came from the former entities Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI) and Instituto Nacional de Hidrocarburos (INH), which were liquidated by the above mentioned norm.

SEPI Group

SEPI has a direct and majority participation in 18 companies, which make up the Grupo SEPI, with a final workforce over 80,000 workers. It also has competences on the Corporación Radiotelevisión Española and on the Ente Público RTVE, which is attached to this state-owned enterprise, as well as on a controlled public foundation. Equally, it has minority direct shareholdings in 7 companies, and indirect shareholdings in more than 100 companies.

SEPI's activity adjusts to the private legal system

SEPI follows in all its activities the private, civil, mercantile and labor law system, without prejudice to those matters to which the General Budgetary Act applies. It has its own budget, which is integrated within the State General Budget, from which it can receive contributions Beginning in 2006, after Act 20/2006, on June 5th was passed, SEPI and those companies in which it has a majority participation can receive contributions from the State General Budget, as well as to raise funds in the domestic and international markets, through the issue and placing of fixed-interest securities, which may enjoy against third parties the guarantee of the State.

The changes introduced by Act 20/2006 into Act 5/1996 for the Creation of Certain Public Law Entities and in Royal Law Decree 15/1997, which also affect SEPI, changed the financial regime for this state-owned enterprise and that of its companies, with the aim of adapting it , within the full respect of Community Law, to a new entrepreneurial phase in which it was no longer possible to maintain the principle of budgetary autonomy under which it was created, once the large privatization processes had been completed, basically between 1996 and 2000, and being able to continue facing the industrial and corporate commitments, past and future.

Public control of the State and that of the EU

SEPI and its Group of companies are subjected to the same control procedures as any other institution of the public sector, besides of those other controls which result from their activities in the business field and regarding privatizations:

Economic and financial control, through the Office of the State Comptroller (Intervención General de la Administración del Estado, IGAE) and the Court of Auditors (Tribunal de Cuentas).
Control of the industrial relations, by the Commission for the Follow-Up of Collective Bargaining and the Inter-Ministry Commission for Remunerations (CECIR in Spanish).
Specific controls for privatizations, by the Consultative Board for Privatizations, the IGAE and the Court of Auditors.
Control by Parliament, through information summons in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, and through Parliamentarian initiatives.
Control by the European Union, through the Community bodies which deal with competition and sectorial policies.