Autogrill's board of directors has given the go-ahead for the proportional partial spin-off project with which Autogrill intends to transfer the entire share capital of World Duty Free Group Sau, a Spanish-registered company, to the wholly-owned beneficiary company World Duty Free (Wdf) the group's activities in the Travel Retail & Duty Free sector. This was communicated by Autogrill, specifying that the demerger has a primarily industrial purpose.
The creation of two distinct groups focused on the Food & Beverage and Travel Retail & Duty Free sectors will allow "better to pursue strategies and improve results, leveraging on their respective strengths".
Furthermore, the separation of the two sectors "could allow the financial markets to have a better understanding and, consequently, an autonomous assessment of the different strategies, as well as facilitate any industrial aggregation operations in the respective reference markets".
The demerger, which will be submitted to the approval of the Shareholders' Meeting in June, will be proportional in nature: the shares of the beneficiary company Wdf will be assigned to Autogrill shareholders on the basis of a ratio of one to one on the effective date of the demerger. On that date, Wdf's shareholders will substantially coincide with those of Autogrill on the same date.
