Takeover day and strong increases in Piazza Affari, in addition to theGenerali's insurance takeover bid for Cattolica, important news could arrive for the telecommunications sector. At the center of attention, this time there is Retelit which, after having struggled to raise the price, takes fifth gear and gains 12,57% by mid-morning, 2,91 euros after having touched a maximum of 2,96 euros per share.
At the base of the rally there is the takeover bid launched by the Spanish fund Asterion which, through Marbles, promoted a voluntary offer on the entire share capital of Retelit, excluding the 28,748% already held by Marbles through the subsidiary Fiber 4.0. Main condition of the offer is to reach at least 66,67% of the capital of the Italian telecommunications company, but the fund reserves the right to partially waive the minimum threshold as long as it reaches at least 50% of the share capital plus one share. The objective is therefore to reach 100% of Retelit's share capital and the consequent delisting of shares from Borsa Italiana.
The established price is equal to 2,85 euro per share, with a premium of 10,7% over the official price per share as at 28 May and a premium of 30,3% over the average, weighted by volumes traded, of the official prices in the previous twelve months. The the maximum value is 333,6 million euro. The takeover bid aims at the delisting of Retelit and is subject, among other things, to the so-called condition "Golden power" and for this reason Asterion will deposit the relative request for authorization to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. It will therefore be the government led by Mario Draghi that will have the last word on the operation.
Through a note, Asterion lets it be known that Retelit represents “an unparalleled strategic opportunity to enter the Italian telecommunications market with a growing independent digital platform" and for this reason after the closing of the takeover bid "it intends to fully support Retelit's industrial plan and current development plans" and "to contribute to the growth of the broadcaster leveraging its experience in the communications sector and working with Retelit's management in order to achieve some of the growth objectives envisaged by the broadcaster's strategy disclosed to the public”. Finally, in the future, Asterion "does not exclude the possibility of evaluating the implementation of extraordinary operations and/or corporate reorganisations" additional to the possible merger of Retelit "and of businesses that may be deemed appropriate".
Il period of acceptance of the offer will be agreed with Borsa Italiana and will have a duration of between a minimum of fifteen and a maximum of forty trading days (unless extended).
