SACE, Eur 799 million of extraordinary dividend to CDP

The Shareholders' Meeting of SACE SpA (made up of the sole shareholder Cassa Depositi e Prestiti) recently resolved, on the proposal of the Board of Directors, the reduction of share capital from 4.340 to 3.541 million euros, through reimbursement to the sole shareholder of approximately 799 million euro. The resolution will become enforceable, as required by art. 2445 of the Civil Code, 90 days after registration in the register of companies.
The Assembly also approved theissue of a subordinated bond loan. In this regard, SACE has entrusted the task of joint arranger e structuring adviser to Barclays and Citi, and as joint bookrunner to Deutsche Bank, HSBC and UniCredit.
SACE is therefore doing some budget cleaning in view of the privatisation, scheduled for this year, but on which all official news is silent at the moment. There has been talk of various hypotheses, the most recurring of which is the sale of 60% of the corporate package, it is not yet known whether through a private placement or a listing on the Stock Exchange (but the moment certainly does not seem to be the best). It is nonetheless about quite traditional operations when placing an important block of shares on the market: SACE had far too much capitalization and very little debt, and a replacement of equity (the share capital) with almost equity (the subordinated bond loan) does not substantially worsen theappeal of the title of our public insurance. Which, on the contrary, looks slim and in good shape in view of possible future weddings.