The competition to manage Ibiza’s sports marina has entered a critical administrative stage, with the two remaining bidders given three working days to correct deficiencies identified in their tender documentation.

The Autoridad Portuaria de Baleares (APB) notified the Club Náutico de Ibiza and Puertos y Litorales Sostenibles on Wednesday, September 16, of the issues found in their administrative submissions.

The correction period covers Thursday, Friday and Monday. Once the documentation has been submitted, the APB’s legal services will review it before the tender can move forward to the opening of the technical proposals.

Two bidders remain in the competition

The tender for the nautical-sports facilities at the Ribera-Poniente quay in Ibiza Port has two remaining candidates: the Club Náutico de Ibiza and Puertos y Litorales Sostenibles, the company currently operating the marina under the Port Nàutic Ibiza name.

Both submitted offers before the September 7 deadline.

The APB subsequently suspended the opening of the second envelope after its opening committee identified formal deficiencies in both bids. The authority described those deficiencies as correctable through the established procedure.

Three issues affect the Club Náutico de Ibiza

The Club Náutico de Ibiza has been asked to correct three points.

First, the provisional guarantee submitted with its offer was presented in handwritten format and must be provided in the required original version.

Second, the documentation contains two different project budget summary tables, with figures of approximately €20 million and €3 million. The APB requires clarification about which amount corresponds to the provisional guarantee.

Third, the submission is missing a certificate confirming that the Club Náutico de Sant Antoni is up to date with its payments to the APB.

That third issue revealed the Sant Antoni club's role in the Ibiza club's tender as an entity integrating its financial solvency.

Puertos y Litorales also has documents to correct

The other bidder, Puertos y Litorales Sostenibles, must provide more recent annual accounts.

The accounts submitted with its bid only run through May 31, 2025, and the APB has requested updated documentation rather than assuming that the company's current financial position is unchanged.

The company must also correct its provisional guarantee. The insurance bond was signed by the company's representative rather than by the issuing insurance entity, and the APB considered that this did not adequately establish its authenticity.

The three-day deadline does not decide the tender

The three-day correction period should not be interpreted as meaning that either bidder will automatically remain in the competition once the missing documents are submitted.

After the deadline, APB legal services must review the corrected documentation and process it before the competition can proceed to the technical stage.

The authority has described this as a normal procedure in concession competitions and said the process continues in accordance with the tender conditions.

A separate question surrounds the Club Náutico de Ibiza's solvency

More significant than the formal documentation problems is a separate question concerning the Club Náutico de Sant Antoni's participation in the financial solvency of the Ibiza club's offer.

The Club Náutico de Ibiza does not independently demonstrate the minimum €3.3 million net worth required by the tender conditions and therefore relies on third-party entities to integrate its economic and financial solvency.

The Sant Antoni club is one of those entities. Under the tender conditions, financial solvency integration involves joint and several responsibility for the proper fulfilment of the concession. The investment associated with the concession has a known minimum reference of around €20 million.

The authority of the Sant Antoni board is being questioned

The issue centres on the statutes of the Club Náutico de Sant Antoni.

According to the published statutes cited in the reporting, the club's board can assume economic commitments only up to 20% of the amount of the previous approved annual budget.

The statutes also state that when that threshold is exceeded, a General Assembly must be convened specifically for the purpose.

The reporting says that no such assembly appears to have been convened, although this information has been described as obtained unofficially and the club has not publicly provided a detailed explanation.

The APB must determine what happened

This does not mean that the Club Náutico de Ibiza has already been excluded.

The key question is whether the solvency commitment submitted with its tender was adopted by the body within the Club Náutico de Sant Antoni that had the legal and statutory authority to make it.

The tender conditions require the integration of third-party solvency to come from the competent body of the entity providing that solvency.

The APB therefore has to examine the relevant documentation and determine whether the required authority existed when the tender was submitted.

Why the distinction matters

A missing certificate or incorrectly formatted document can potentially be corrected during the formal rectification period.

The question over the authority behind the Sant Antoni club's commitment is different.

If the APB concludes that the commitment was made by an organ that did not have the necessary authority, the issue could affect the validity of the Ibiza club's solvency integration and, consequently, its participation in the tender.

That outcome has not yet been determined.

What the winner will receive

The successful bidder will manage approximately 33,352 square metres of public port domain, comprising 25,487 square metres of water surface and 7,866 square metres of land.

The concession can run for up to 25 years and involves an investment of around €20 million in two phases.

The fixed annual fee is €364,746.93, plus 4% of turnover as an activity fee.

The tender also places significant weight on sporting activity. Thirty of the 100 evaluation points are linked to the annual spending committed to sporting activities, with a mandatory minimum of €550,000 per year from the fourth year.

The next step

The immediate deadline is the three working days given to both bidders to correct their identified documentary deficiencies.

After that, the APB's legal services will review the submissions before the process can progress to the technical documentation.

For the Club Náutico de Ibiza, however, the more consequential question may be the APB's assessment of the Sant Antoni club's role in integrating financial solvency.

At this stage, the Ibiza club remains in the competition. The APB has not announced its exclusion, and no final decision has been made on whether the solvency commitment supplied through the Club Náutico de Sant Antoni meets the tender requirements.