DELLA VALLE'S ANGRY RAISES RCS MEDIA GROUP +6%. THE INDEPENDENT BOARD OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS WISHED BY MEDIOBANCA IS LAUNCH
There was no white smoke, as expected. Rcs Mediagroup halfway through the page, without filling in the ad box. “It's not there because we want to choose well” says Paolo Merloni, director of the Corriere della Sera group, among the few members of the old board for confirmation in the Board of Directors among many “independents” chosen by Renato Pagliaro, president of Mediobanca. The vote, in fact, did not record any surprises.
The meeting appointed a board of twelve members which includes Angelo Provasoli, who will be appointed president by the current board on the same day. Umberto Ambrosoli, Roland Berger, Andrea Campanini Bonomi, Fulvio Conti, Luca Garavoglia, Piergaetano Marchetti (outgoing president), Paolo Merloni, Carlo Pesenti, Angelo Provasoli and Giuseppe Vita were then elected to the RCS board. Giuseppe Rotelli enters for the minorities. According to expectations, the twelfth director will be the new managing director, whose name has not yet been identified.
That empty armchair justifies the wrath of Diego Della Valle who fired broadsides left and right noting that “the pact, in my opinion, no longer exists”. And, so as not to create misunderstandings, he underlined that he spoke "as an important shareholder who intends to weigh even more as soon as possible". Music to the ears of Piazza Affari which prejudges an air of battle: the Rcs stock, after his words, "rips in the volatility auction amid strong exchanges, with a theoretical increase of 8,76%, then reduced to a still robust + 6% between exchanges well above the average (more than a million pieces against the 700 average).
But the feeling is that the game is destined to be played more with cards already dealt than on the basis of new, pyrotechnic blitzes. Della Valle himself, a few weeks ago, was beaten in time by Giuseppe Rotelli who acquired the stake in the Toto group agreeing to pay his 5% with a much higher premium than that offered by Don Diego. The keystone of the battle for "Rizzoli is not a game room where one has fun and comes up with impromptu ideas" as underlined by the pyretechnician mister Tod's is in the possible reshuffling of the cards between today's big shareholders, both those outside pact (Della Valle himself, Rotelli and the Benetton family) that those who can't wait to come out of the agreement that will expire in March 2014. Like Generali CEO Giovanni Perissinotto.
“My precise impression is that the pact doesn't exist anymore – insists Della Valle – In the last pact, I witnessed a strong discontent even from people who, for the sake of a quiet life, don't say it and will avoid saying it for a while”. Then, with clear reference to Mediobanca (of which he is an important shareholder) he adds: “Convoking the pact three times in 48 hours to decide two things does not belong to that school there. Pacts summoned them for a second. We are finally moving towards a market that is opening up”.
The intention to leave the pact is not exclusive to Perissinotto aloneDella Valle points out. ”I've heard many other people say it, even if today to be fair they don't expose themselves or expose themselves as little as possible, I have the impression that these things are really over, not only in Rizzoli, but in the mentality of the economy of this market. We are moving towards something positive in this sense”. "The market - he adds - must belong to those who know how to lead it, accept and win the challenge of competitiveness" and no more "authoritativeness should be given to those who have no value".
Della Valle's outing overshadows the voice of the outgoing president, Piergaetano Marchetti, who will remain in control of the beloved (and not economic) Foundation. “The choice of the new CEO of Rcs MediaGroup will be made”, he assures, "within a very short time, so that the company has continuity solution in a difficult moment". "It is correct that the new CEO is chosen by the new board of directors - he added - The top management will treasure any research and indications of shortlists of names that will be carried out".
"I had a name and it was that of Antonello Perricone" Della Valle replies at a distance. Antonello Perricone, the outgoing CEO, limits himself to illustrating the company's situation, not rosy but less gray than other competitors. Rcs MediaGroup, he explains, saw advertising sales in Italy in the first quarter that were "decidedly better than the competition" with a gross operating margin which, despite the difficult economic situation, "will be not too dissimilar both from its own objectives and from the EBITDA of the first quarter of last year".
"It's not yet the time to talk about the quarterly, which will be examined in mid-May by the Board of Directors – concluded Perricone -. What we can say today is that based on the data in our possession regarding advertising, I believe that the RCS data in Italy are decidedly better than the competition and this should allow us, even in the presence of a drop in advertising revenues, to bring the EBITDA result closer not only to that forecast but also to that of the previous year, thanks to the continuous action on costs, which in Spain had to be continued further with new action plans”.
In short, woe to let your guard down. On the contrary, the sooner the business plan arrives the better. Also because it is necessary to untie some fundamental knots: proceed or not with the already approved capital increase? Cash in on the sale of prestigious real estate units and with Flammarion? And what to prioritize, once the necessary resources have been gathered: development in forced stages on the web? The restructuring, even "violent" of the Spanish subsidiary Recoletos, which operates on a market, if possible, even worse than the Italian one (yesterday it was known that since the beginning of the crisis as many as 6.241 Spanish journalists have lost their jobs on radio, TV or printed paper)? Della Valle says he is “in favor of anything that puts the company in a position to be competitive, to be able to invest, whatever the way forward. Before thinking about a capital increase, as far as I'm concerned and for the board of directors who approved it, the company can be secured by selling non-strategic things”, including the periodicals titles.
