This morning there were two important leaps: the first on someone's chair when he read the news of Rai Way, published in the newspaper Il Messaggero, which allegedly gave a mandate to a well-known London bank to study a corporate approach operation with the competitor Ei Towers. The second took place on the Stock Exchange, where the shares of the listed companies directly involved, as well as Rai Way, Ei Towers and Inwitt, experienced substantial increases.
This is the well-known "pole of the towers" which FIRSTonline has been dealing with for a long time and for some time. The central point of the debate has also been clearly and roundly reiterated on these pages by the Undersecretary for TLCs, Antonello Giacomelli, who has been arguing for some time that the operation can be done, it will have to be done in an efficient national industrial policy logic of the TLCs provided strong public participation is ensured. However, the constraints of share allocations on corporate control remain unchanged for the time being.
On today's news, in Rai mouths sewn. Someone prefers not to comment, but suggesting that they know how to read what's behind it. Let's go in order: first of all let's divide the areas. The first concerns operations of a strictly financial nature (market capitalization of the two companies - 1,4 billion for Ei Tower against 1,2 for Rai Way - exchange of card for card, etc.); the second concerns balances and political perspectives in the relationship between the Government and Viale Mazzini.
In the first area, someone has hinted that the news is the result of a "preventive" self-candidacy of banks interested in getting their hands on the dish that promises to be very appetizing, in short, a kind of fake news useful for making people understand and know who is in the match. Moreover, it would be improper, as well as premature, for Rai Way to have formally commissioned such an operation, albeit in the form of a preventive study, when in the short term, next April 28th, a possible change in the Company's top management is expected .
This is an issue, as one can easily assume, entirely in charge of the next coming Board of Directors, also in charge of managing the delicate and complex affair of 700 Mhz according to the Community provisions on the subject. Therefore, the story still appears premature and, as far as we have been able to verify, there do not seem to be the conditions to support this initiative. Furthermore, as we have written, the legislative constraints in force do not at all allow us to anticipate the launch of such an operation in a short time that requires technical stakes that are anything but easy to implement.
Instead, a completely different scenario concerns the political reading of the "pole of the towers" story. It is well known that not a day goes by without Michele Anzaldi, PD representative in the Rai Supervisory Commission, firing bullets against Viale Mazzini and its top management. What is at stake, however, does not seem to be a hypothetical renewal of corporate governance, at least in the short term. The real issue on which weapons are being sharpened is the renewal of the concession which contains aspects, for Rai, of great concern such as the license fee, the distribution of advertising revenues and much more with a significant impact on Rai's accounts.
The two games, financial and political, can also cross each other but, perhaps, we have to wait a few more weeks before being able to read something new on the horizon.
