Waiting for the developments of the public exchange offer on Ubi, Intesa Sanpaolo +0,96% achieved an excellent sale: the investment held by the institute in Autostrade Lombarde on which the control of 78,9% of Brebemi (in addition to a small share, equal to 0,0542% held directly). The highway was valued at just over 2 billion, including 1,9 billion in debt.
To take over the artery, included in the program for the sale of equity investments deemed "no longer strategic" by the institute, will be the Spanish Aleatica, 100% controlled by Ifm, an Australian management company which boasts about 400 institutional investors including Australian, American and Japanese pension funds and large insurance companies. A large investor who has undoubtedly made a good deal if we consider that the work cost just over 2,5 billion but who, above all, operates in a long-term logic, without worrying about coping with the pressure of the debts that tormented the Lombard motorway (at the time presented, as it was not, as a company financed only by private capital) right from the start. On the contrary, Ifm, active for the first time in Italy, is an open-ended fund that operates with a long-term horizon (on average their operations have a duration of 20 years) and manages assets for over €100 billion in transport infrastructure: motorways, ports, airports, railways, or rather those strategic fronts also for the Bel Paese. Only in words, alas.
Indeed, the operation between Italy, Spain and Australia offers the occasion for more than one bad thought. Less than two years have passed since Italy bought the autopistas, starting with the Spanish Abertis. Today, however, the Autostrade company is making headlines above all for the endless queues encountered by unwary travelers who claim to travel the strip of asphalt that should connect Liguria to the rest of the world and which on the contrary presents itself as a formidable and insurmountable barrier.
In this frame, another coincidence is impressive. The entry of the fund into Autostrade Lombarde follows by a few days another offer made by another Australian company, Macquarie (this time well known in the Peninsula) against the share of Open Fiber held by Enel with the clear objective of participating in the creation of a single network that requires heavy investments. Just a case? Perhaps. What is certain is that infrastructures, both physical and virtual, are iThe hot spot of strategic competition between various economies. It is not surprising, given the context, that Intesa Sanpaolo has considered the function of its participation to be exhausted in order to concentrate on the Ubi game which is born under a favorable star: even in the event of failure to complete the merger with Ubi for which it will be necessary to reach a share of 66 %, Intesa Sanpaolo estimates it will be able to reach, thanks to the purchase of 51% (almost discounted) in any case the goal of a net profit of at least 5 billion euros in 2022, for the reality that will arise from the integration, despite the lower cost synergies deriving from the maintenance of the Bergamo group as a separate legal entity.
