For Alitalia the Middle Eastern runway opens up. According to Bloomberg sources, the United Arab Emirates company Etihad Airways would be ready to invest around 300 million euros in the Italian carrier, thus becoming its first shareholder. The two companies are said to be close to reaching an agreement and it is possible that a meeting will be held in Rome in the next few hours to finalize the agreement.
The Abu Dhabi-based company allegedly asked to have access to Alitalia's accounts before formalizing an offer and is considering whether to acquire a stake that could go up to 49%. Indeed, if this threshold were exceeded, Alitalia would lose the rights and advantages it enjoys as a European operator. In any case, the operation would allow Etihad to find an important opening in Europe, as part of its ambitious growth strategy.
Meanwhile, Alitalia is closing the 300 million euro capital increase approved in recent days by the board. Only the 75 million euros that Poste Italiane has undertaken to pay later are missing. As for the remaining part, 125 million will come from the shareholders and 100 from Unicredit and Intesa as an advance to guarantee the unopted share.
Alitalia is looking for an international investor after shareholder Air France-KLM decided not to take part in the recapitalization, diluting its stake from 25% to 8%.
