Piazza Affari starts the week in red, but Poste Italiane travels against the trend. The Stock jumps to the top of the FTSE MIB showing a rise of 4,2% at 10:22 on Monday morning.
The purchases' fuse was lit by the placement on the market of the second tranche of Poste Italiane which should bring about 2,4 billion euros into the Treasury's coffers.
The Minister of Economic Development, Carlo Calenda confirmed that the privatization of the 29,7% of Poste still in the hands of the Treasury will be placed on the market by the end of the summer.
But the hypothesis of an extraordinary dividend of one billion euros also prompted the rally of Poste. The operation was designed, according to rumors in circulation, to encourage privatisation. In fact, on the one hand, the State urgently needs to proceed with privatization to reduce the public debt, but on the other, political uncertainties, with the risk of new elections, lead us to foresee a slowdown in the process. For this reason, the Ministry of the Economy is considering various alternatives for the sale of 30% of Poste still directly in the hands of the State. Among the hypotheses under study, according to press sources, there would be the transfer of the remaining share in public hands to Cassa depositi e prestiti, which already holds another 30% of the delivery company. However, today CDP would not have the means to carry out a 2,5 billion operation, the value of the share at the current market price. For this reason, it would be hypothesized to have the company led by Francesco Caio distribute an extraordinary dividend for a value of one billion, which would add up to the expected ordinary dividend of around 520 million.
In this way CDP would have the financial means to carry out the operation. A 60% stake would give the right to a dividend of 916 million.
The second possibility is instead to continue with the pre-established path by selling 30% of the capital on the market even if in this case the times would very probably be postponed to the autumn of this year.
