The numbers speak clearly: Rai Way is in good health. The Shareholders' Meeting concluded this morning in Viale Mazzini approved the financial statements with respectable numbers: 2016 closed with a net profit of 41,814 million euros, up 7,4% on the previous year and the distribution of the dividend equal to 0,1537 euro per share was approved.
Rai, the majority shareholder, with 64,9% of the capital, received a dividend check for 27,13 million euro. As we have already written, the title travels at full speed and therefore shareholders can be largely satisfied with a respectable performance. After all, it is a security that has often been appreciated as a bond, by virtue of a service contract that Rai Way has signed with Rai and which guarantees it a turnover of over 80%.
But, starting precisely from this aspect, interconnected problems are revealed that this morning have emerged but to which, once again, there have been no answers. First of all, a small detail on why and how a Chief Executive Officer, Stefano Ciccotti, was "induced" to resign without any apparent justification, as requested by a shareholder. His long and consolidated experience at the top of the listed Rai group has been and still is a heritage that is not easy to do without. Also on FIRSTonline, we wrote about it: who is, or who should be, the man or the team that could bear the burden of starting the so-called "pole of the towers"? Up until a couple of months ago, an operation had been launched, initially supported by DG Rai, Antonio Campo Dall'Orto, aimed at identifying a man and a team of internal Rai executives who would (the conditional is obligatory) have launch the "towers" project, so dear to undersecretary Giacomelli who never misses an opportunity to reiterate that it is a dossier with an industrial logic without prejudice to public control. After that the cards on the table have changed.
This issue partially emerged during the Assembly and the response from the Chairman Raffaele Agrusti was clear: “There are no relations with Ei Towers speaking of corporate mergers" and added Ciccotti "we are not afraid of what happens on the market". Full stop.
The hypothesis, also suggested by our sources, that "a certain political air" has changed is not unfounded.
Another relevant issue, although not directly pertinent to the Shareholders' Meeting, is the connection between the renewal of the Rai Concession, still being defined, and the possible repercussions with the service contract between Rai and Rai Way. A shareholder raised the question but there was no response. The issue is certainly on the agenda and it has consequences for the business model towards which the Company in Via Teulada is oriented. Just as FirstOnLine dealt with the issue of the impact of the fallout of Community legislation on the redistribution of 700 Mhz, and also with this topic.
The robust shoulders, from a financial and managerial point of view, highlighted by Rai Way this morning in Viale Mazzini let us glimpse a peaceful future. It will be a matter of seeing whether the new Rai Way Board of Directors, in office since this morning, and the "market" which does not arouse fears but which seems very interested in providing the country with a single subject capable of rationally managing the present and the future of the towers, whatever they are, will leave questions unanswered for a long time to come.
