First name public utilitiesbut bigger. The aggregations among utilities they have become an absolute necessity. What if Matteo Renzi, a few months ago, had announced a consolidation via Twitter “from 8000 to 1000” among the local Spas, today on the eve of the 2015 Stability Law which could trigger the ax and lead them towards a dutiful unification, Franco Bassanini (in the dual role of president of the CDP and Astrid) identifies a more selective objective, limited to the three key sectors of water, gas and waste: "Compared to the current situation of around 1.100 operators overall, once fully operational, their rreduction to 60-190, and it is desirable that we arrive at a real number close to the lower end of the interval”. Therefore, from over a thousand to less than 200: with a reorganization that should leave alive from 6 to 17 percent of the current former municipal companies providing services to the public. Hypotheses and numbers were discussed during the conference organized by Astrid with That and Southern Europe and dedicated to "local public services facing the challenge of growth".
Whether tomorrow the Council of Ministers will give the go-ahead to the package of rules, which have been talked about for some time, which should make it possible to achieve the goal or whether instead it will prefer to choose another moment to trigger the D-day of consolidation, it will be seen short ride. “The rules are ready – specified the Deputy Minister for Development Claudio De Vincenti – but the Council will decide tomorrow what will be the best vehicle to launch them. I can't say now if they will end up in the Stability Law or elsewhere". Even the Deputy Minister of Economy Enrico Morando ensured that "there will be an intervention in favor of restructurings, mergers, aggregations that make the objective to be achieved realistic. And here – he added – it must be considered that we have a huge emergency called South to which we will have to give priority”. In any case, the framework within which the new regulations will operate is “the enormous novelty introduced by the Economic and Financial Document. In other words, the historic decision to bring forward by one year, from 1 January 2016 to 1 January 2015, the overcoming the internal stability pact for Municipalities and Regions passing directly to the principle of budget balance, included in the Constitution for the state budget and which will be extended to local authorities".
A Copernican revolution, in short, to remedy the proliferation of local subsidiaries "some created - admitted Morando - precisely to circumvent the internal stability pact. Once that is eliminated, the system conditions are created for it to become realistic to go from 8.000 to 1.000 companies”. Will Morando's real politik be successful? In any case, it is a starting point for intervening in a sector which, Bassanini recalled again, limited to the 1115 joint-stock companies operating in the energy-water-waste sector, has guaranteed a production value of 40 billion a year and gave birth profits of 604 million in 2011. Again, it is good to know that 9% of companies control 87% of turnover and employ 77% of employees. In order to maintain an adequate level of services, however, investment programs are needed for infrastructure adjustment, estimated at 5 billion a year in water services, 1 billion a year in gas distribution and another 5 billion a year for disposal waste. Which, reported on per capita values, roughly means 17 euros per day for each inhabitant in the case of gas e 80 euros per day per inhabitant in the case of water. Who will put this money?
This is where institutional investors come into play. The Italian strategic fund is planning 500 millioni of investments in the local public services sector. “For that 9% of large utilities, perhaps aggregating is an option – underlines the CEO Maurizio Tamagnini – but for the remaining 850, making the leap and overcoming the ideological challenge of aggregation is an absolute necessity”. The Fondo F2i guarantees another 800 million in key sectors. But to get to the 10-15 billion needed we need to rally the financial sector. “We are interested – Matteo Botto Poala replies to the appeal of Goldman Sachs– but clarity of rules and roles is needed. That is, a new governance is needed, only in this way will international investors be interested in investing”. Even clearer Claudia Fornaro of Mediobanca:”Public shareholders must accept a dilution of their controlling shares either in the context of capital increases or in the context of aggregation processes”. Concludes the CEO of Acea, Alberto Irace, who looks true to Tuscany and Umbria: "It is uneconomical to think that every mayor can manage the companies that provide services to his own territory". A cession of sovereignty "is by now in the order of things".
