Those who hoped for white smoke were disappointed. The Neverending Story of Fate Autostrade per l'Italia is still far from the epilogue. On Tuesday the Board of Atlantia, which controls 88% of Aspi, returned to the sender the proposal arrived from Cassa depositi e prestiti in partnership with foreign funds Blackstone e Macquarie (the first American, the second Australian).
The Benetton family holding did not like the fact that it was only about a preliminary proposal, as he would have preferred a binding offer. But the question is not only formal. In terms of content, the greatest distance between the parties concerns the valorisation of Autostrade: for the consortium led by Cdp, 100% of Aspi counts between 8,5 and 9,5 billion, a range still far from what Atlantia would deem satisfactory. The figure includes the "discount" for the knot of indemnification but the British fund Tci – which in recent days has increased its stake in the capital of Atlantia, bringing it beyond the relevant threshold of 10% – has reiterated several times that it considers a valuation acceptable for Aspi between 11 and 12 billion euros for 100% of the share capital, specifying that without a competitive process and an adequate offer, the path of demerger with subsequent IPO of Autostrade would be preferable.
And therefore this second condition remains standing. According to Atlantia, in fact, there are no conditions to postpone the meeting of 30 October which will have to decide which path to follow: the auction of Aspi or alternatively the spin-off of the subsidiary with subsequent listing on Piazza Affari. Cdp, on the other hand, had explicitly asked the holding company to abandon the double-track strategy.
In short, we are still on the high seas and the outcome of the negotiation is by no means a given. The only certainty, for the moment, is that the negotiations continue under the radar.
On the financial side, predictably, the impossibility of making forecasts penalizes Atlantia's stock on the Stock Exchange, which – after closing Tuesday's session in the red by 3,17% – dropped another percentage point by mid-morning on Wednesday, to 14,625 euros, in line with the performance of the Ftse Mib.
