Wedding in Italian oil: Api, anonymous petroli italiana SpA, an Italian oil company active in the oil refining and fuel distribution sectors, signed on Friday a binding agreement with ERG SpA and Total Marketing Services SA aimed at acquiring 100% of the shares of TotalErg SpA.
If the network of fuel distributors and the refining assets were sold to API (in this joint venture Erg had 51% and Total 49%), the other half of the deal concerns the end of the joint venture with Erg in lubricants , with the purchase by the French major of 51% held by the Italian company. Total points out that "the lubricants market offers satisfactory growth prospects".
The total amount that Erg will receive the equity value from the transaction equal to 273 million. This figure includes the extraordinary dividends distributed by TotalErg for a total of 71 million and a deferred component of 36 million, regulated by a 'vendor loan agreement' with a maturity of five and a half years, signed with Api.
Commenting on the transaction, the CEO of Erg, Luca Bettonte, explains that the sale is "consistent with our strategy and our role as producers of green energy, it allows us to further strengthen our financial capacity in order to continue our path of growth in renewables”.
The operation with API which includes over 2.600 service stations in the TotalErg network, the logistics hub in Rome and 25,16% of the Trecate (NO) refinery – states the press release announcing the operation – will allow the Group Brachetti Peretti family to consolidate its position in the Italian downstream oil sector.
The new group will have over 5000 points of sale throughout the national territory, of the activity of the Falconara Marittima (AN) and Trecate refineries, and of a logistics distributed both on the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the Adriatic Sea. Based on the 2016 aggregate results, the new group would achieve a turnover of approximately 6 billion euros.
“We are very satisfied with the positive outcome of this strongly Italian operation. An industrial operation that has a strategic nature both for our Group, which strengthens its position on the market and its capillarity on the national territory, and for the future evolution of the entire Italian fuel and mobility sector” declared Ugo Brachetti Peretti, President of api. "The acquisition allows us to reach the production, logistics and commercial dimension necessary to pursue our development strategy that has the customer at the center: we want to be alongside Italians wherever they need energy and services to move, with an offer increasingly broad, innovative and advantageous.”
“It is a new important step for our group and for our family” commented the president and CEO of api holding, Ferdinando Brachetti Peretti. “This acquisition strengthens us on a market in which we have been present for more than 80 years, confirming our trust and interest in investing in our country by bringing our values to Italians.”
The effectiveness of the transaction, the closing of which is expected by 31 January 2018, is subject to Antitrust approval.
In the acquisition, UniCredit acted as financial advisor to api. UBI Banca and Banco BPM supported api as joint financial advisor in defining the group's capital structure and structuring the loan. The Bonelli Erede studio assisted api as legal advisor.
