The privatization of Poste Italiane warms up the engines. And just this morning Francesco Caio, managing director of the national postal Spa, met investment funds and bankers in New York to present the strengths of the project to the financial community. The day after tomorrow, Wednesday, he will be in London and do an encore. The pairing of the two appointments in the two most important world financial centers marks, if not in form given that the green light from Consob is still missing for the information prospectus, at least in substance, the start of the process for the sale of 40% of the capital.
D-DAY AND THE BAG
The arrival point is the quotation on the Stock Exchange scheduled for Wednesday 28 October. This date is arrived at considering that Consob has until 12 October to give its green light to the prospectus presented by Poste on 11 August. It is not said that he will wait until the last day and indeed the expectation is that he will pronounce himself by 9 October. The offer of the shares would thus start on the following Monday, with an expected duration of 2 weeks. Any postponement or request for further information by Consob, not currently envisaged, would result in a postponement of a maximum of one week on the programme.
This is the most reliable timing that will have to be confirmed but which for now does not foresee significant deviations: "We have entered a moment of greater volatility but the market sees the fundamentals of the EU and US recovery as credible, therefore we will maintain our roadmap". replied Caio in Cernobbio to those who asked him if the Chinese braking could interfere with the quotation programmes. An operation from which the Treasury aims to collect a few billion, 4 according to circulated estimates, and which will be the flagship of the privatizations of the Renzi government.
THE MEETING WITH THE LARGE FUNDS
The meeting in New York, pending the start of the actual road show that will accompany the launch of the offer, will in the meantime serve to take the pulse of the overseas financial community and also discuss the choice of dates and the distribution of shares of offer. Francesco Caio will be accompanied by the CFO Luigi Ferraris and by the banks of the consortium for the public offer (Banca IMI, Unicredit, Bank of America Merril Lynch, Citi and Mediobanca).
Given that Poste Italiane is certainly one of the most eagerly awaited IPOs on the market, the aim is to measure the intentions of large institutional funds, sovereigns and pension funds, regarding their commitment to invest in Poste Spa. It is a question of explaining the complex structure of the giant Poste which rests on the three pillars of postal, banking and insurance services and to illustrate the business plan developed by the top management. And to understand what share of Poste Spa they are interested in covering in order to best balance the amount of shares to be offered to institutional investors and that to be placed with the public of savers.
THE ARTICULATION OF THE OFFER
By placing 40% of the capital, according to rumors circulated, the Ministry of the Economy expects to collect a total of around 4 billion. In fact, the range of estimates on the overall value of Poste oscillates between 8 and 10 billion, which corresponds to a price range between 5,5 and 7,5 euros.
Of the share offered to the market, 30-40% should go to retail (including any share reserved for employees) while the remaining 60-70% would be offered to institutions. Poste is unique on the market with 28,5 billion in turnover, 212 million in profit, a widespread presence on the Italian territory comparable only to that of commissariats and carabinieri stations, and 144.635 employees.
In order not to give up listing it this year and make the sale compatible with accelerated times (as well as not to unleash a war with the unions) the government has decided not to spin off the financial assets (postal and life insurance) as Angela Merkel did with Deutsche Post. Or as Japan has decided to do, preferring the path of "unpacking" the various businesses and on 4 November it will present 3 IPOs (Japan Post Holding, Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance) on the Stock Exchange with expected receipts of over 10 billion euros (1.390 billion yen).
