If we wanted to describe in two words today's performance by Sole 24 Ore and Astaldi in Piazza Affari we could speak of a real "Black Wednesday", referring to the historic "Black Monday" of 1987 in which Wall Street sold 22,6% of its value in a single session. The red that the shares of the two companies have accumulated (stuck for hours and hours in the volatility auction) is even more intense: –26,12% to 0,953 euro for the share of the publishing group, -24,94% for that of the construction company. In just one day, both companies saw a quarter of their market capitalization go up in flames.
A real meltdown that becomes even more serious if we consider the numerous losses in the course of the last week and the last month. Speaking in percentage terms, from Monday 13 November to Thursday 15 November the Sun lost more than 35% of its value, while from 1 November the accumulated decrease is 48,79%. Astaldi is doing even worse, losing 15% in just 60,47 days (-28,13% since Monday 13 November), dropping from 5,9097 euros to 2,336 euros.
Nightmare performances that place the two titles on the podium of the worst of the entire basket together with Creval (-52,7% since the beginning of the month).
For il Sole 24 Ore, at the basis of the fall are the accounts for the nine months of 2017 approved last 10 November in which a net loss of 51,2 million euro was recorded. Simply put, the losses already accumulated during this year are higher than the amount of the capital increase, equal to 50 million, just concluded. The recapitalization carried out by the economic newspaper to try to relaunch itself is therefore not even enough to cover the red in 2017, let alone that of previous years. At this juncture, however, it should be emphasized that the non-recurring income from the sale of the Training business branch to the Palamon Capital Partners fund will also have a positive effect on the current year, which will serve to replenish the group's precarious coffers.
However, investors are also disappointed revenues for 9 months, down to 168,3 million (-12,8% compared to the same period of 2016), and the average number of copies sold: paper copies decreased by 23,1% to 82 thousand copies, digital copies amounted to 148 thousand ( -7,5%).
Speaking of Astaldi, Also in this case, sales were driven by the communication of the latest quarterly data which include the write-down of approximately 230 million euros of receivables from Venezuela and the communication of the capital strengthening programme.
The company has set up a strengthening operation for a total of 400 million, announcing at this juncture a capital increase of 200 million which will be accompanied by the issue of additional financial instruments for 200 million. The recapitalization was announced even before the approval of the quarterly accounts precisely because of the pressure to which the stock has been subjected since the beginning of November.
