For the former Ilva, the Draghi government is thinking of relaunching it, thanks also to the help of European funds. And to put the project in safe hands, the idea is to call - at least for the part that belongs to the State, Franco Bernabè as president e Stefano Cao as a member of the Board. The former led Eni successfully, relaunching it from the darkest years and was CEO of Telecom Italia. The second, Cao, was a front-line manager at Eni and until a few months ago the managing director of Saipem.
It should be a matter of days by now and the Minister of Development Giancarlo Giorgetti has partly anticipated it: as soon as the Mef will release the 400 million that Invitalia will need to subscribe to the capital increase of Am InvestCo - the ArcelorMittal company that manages the steel plants — the summit will be renewed. And although there are still no official confirmations, the most accredited names for the public part are those indicated. It should be remembered that, based on the agreement of 10 December 2020, with the entry of the State through Invitalia into the capital of the steel group, the public shareholder will have to indicate three names for the board of directors and among these the president. In addition to Bernabè and Cao, the third member could be Ernesto Somma, professor of industrial economics at the University of Bari, former chief of staff of Carlo Calenda at Mise and now responsible for incentives at Invitalia.
The project on which the Draghi government is therefore allegedly working is high-profile and focuses on public-private understanding. Franco Bernabè has the difficult task of leading the transition phase towards a recovery-relaunch of the Taranto plant, initially with the role of president but without excluding a subsequent mandate as CEO. A second capital increase should in fact bring the State into the majority position (60% of the capital) with a new top management reorganization and the appointment of the CEO entrusted at that point to the public shareholder.
The timing could be very close, at least in the intentions of the Northern League minister Giorgetti. In short, a matter of days. However, it cannot be excluded that we end up waiting for the 13 May, the date set for the decision by the Council of State on the appeal of ArcelorMittal Italia, Ilva in extraordinary administration and Invitalia against the sentence of the Lecce Administrative Court of February 13 which had ordered the shutdown of the hot area of the Taranto plant. If the Council of State validates the Tar's decision, the entire recovery project would fail because the shutdown of the hot area - in fact - will mark the definitive death of the plant.
