The terminal proposed by the ALONSO GROUP in Sagunto would become the first automated facility in the Valencian port area

The investment of the project presented by the Valencian business group, through its company Intersagunto, exceeds 85 million euros and would inject more than 28 million euros in taxes into the public coffers. The company anticipates in the appeal that it will go to all instances as its bid will not be able to compete on equal terms.

Simulación del patio automatizado de la oferta presentada por Intersagunto Terminales — Simulation of the automated yard of the bid submitted by Intersagunto Terminales.

Alonso Group, through its company Intersagunto Terminales (IST), the multi-purpose terminal of the business group located in the port of Sagunto, has designed what would be the first automated yard in the entire Valencian port area. The cutting-edge proposal, due to its high investment in innovation, has been submitted to the public tender for the construction and operation of the largest administrative concession in the port of Sagunto for the movement of goods, a multi-purpose public terminal located on quay centre 2.

The proposal excluded by the Port Authority of Valencia (APV) presided over by Aurelio Martínez contemplates an investment of more than 85 million euros by the Alonso Group, a business group with 100% Valencian capital. A volume of investment which is 70% more than that made by the UTE made up of the alliance of three companies: Noatum Terminales – a company with exclusively Emirati capital -, Inversiones Algeposa and Boluda Lines – a company which is also a member of the Port Authority of Valencia as part of the port’s Board of Directors-.

Alonso Group considers it striking that the APV is renouncing new facilities with innovative and latest generation technological developments presented in the proposal of Intersagunto Terminals. These are new technologies that, at the moment, do not exist in any of the current terminals integrated in the Port Authority of Valencia, and that are not offered by the other bidders either.

“It is incomprehensible that they exclude a proposal that would inject €28m into the public coffers,” insists IST

In the appeal presented to the APV by the Alonso Group requesting the annulment of the agreement adopted by the Qualification Committee, considering it “arbitrary and illegitimate”, it shows the incomprehension of the decision to exclude a proposal that would also inject 28 million euros into the public coffers of the State for the taxes generated in this project. A figure that increases by €19.1 million the proposal submitted by the UTE in the tender, by committing to much higher minimum traffic. It should also be noted that the investment presented by IST for the first 5 years of the concession is €34.9 million higher than that of the group that makes up the UTE.

Alonso Group also considers it striking that the APV delayed the decision on the tender for up to six months with such a notable difference in innovation and investment between the two projects – the only ones submitted to the tender – and that, surprisingly, it concluded with the exclusion of the one submitted by IST. Intersagunto Terminales complains that the failure to include its bid in the public tender would automatically give the concession to the alliance of three companies.

“External technical reports confirm that IST meets all requirements”

During the process, the Qualification Committee requested constant clarifications from IST, which it rigorously demonstrated point by point, even with the support of various technical reports prepared by prestigious external consultants in the sector. The appeal for review includes them and demonstrates that the Alonso Group terminal has fulfilled all the requirements of suitability and economic-financial and technical-professional solvency established in the terms and conditions of the Valencia Port Authority’s tender documents. IST concludes that “there is a total congruence between the technical documentation and the traffics included in the Financial Plan”, as well as coinciding with those indicated in the written response to IST’s request for clarification to the Qualification Committee.

The appeal reaffirms that, contrary to the assessment made by the Qualification Committee, the technical capacity of the terminal can accommodate the traffic projected throughout the concession and “it is not true that it exceeds the maximum capacity of the Terminal established by IST”, as the APV alludes to for its exclusion from the tender. In this sense, it affirms that it seems clear that “in a matter with a high technical component, they wanted to find an excuse to proceed with the exclusion” of IST.

Based on these facts, the letter of Intersagunto Terminales considers that it has been “unduly excluded from the tender” by infringing the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination, and adds that “the preference given to the bidding joint venture”, which is the only candidate in the tender after the exclusion of IST, is “ostensible”. The decision of the Port Authority of Valencia, chaired by Aurelio Martínez, leaves IST without the option to compete on equal terms. For this reason, the appeal requests “to go back in the procedure to the moment before the exclusion of IST and to evaluate the bidders according to the criteria established in the Tender Specifications”.

In this scenario, Intersagunto considers once again that free competition is being undermined, while at the same time excluding the terminal with a human resources management more in line with the European regulations of the Spanish Mediterranean arc, as well as rejecting the best economic expectations for the APV itself and violating the legality of public tenders in Spain.
For these reasons, the IST company anticipates that it will go to all Spanish and European administrative and criminal courts in order to paralyse a decision that would leave its bid without the possibility of competing on equal terms.