Tim and Generali, Generali and Tim: these are the two challenges that will inflame the Italian finance throughout 2022 and which promise a sparkling spring. The menu is ready, the final result much less. Two battles that fascinate the market but on which the spotlight has already been turned on policy: not to interfere and maramalade at all costs, but because the stakes are very high and on the table there are two major strategic assets such as the Telecom network and Generali's portfolio of over 60 billion government bonds which is equivalent to a good part of the Italian public debt.
Considering that the dispute over the Quirinale is upon us with the uncertainty that it also projects onto the Government, it will take a few months before the two crucial battles of Italian finance come alive, but for the first weeks of spring the fireworks they are already planned.
The battle between Generali already has a date and it is April 29 when the assembly of the first Italian insurance company will be held in Trieste, while it is reasonable to expect that the news will arrive sooner at Tim.
TIM: AMERICAN TENDER OFFER, DISTRIBUTION OF THE RETE, MARRIAGE WITH OF AND SNAM RETE GAS MODEL
The Americans of KKR fund, which have the financial backing of all the US financial giants for a total of 35 billion dollars, are awaiting the green light from Tim's board to start the due diligence and decide – as remains highly probable – whether to launch the tender offer on the all Tim shares. First, however, the telephone company must choose its new CEO, who, barring surprises, will be the General Manager Peter Labriola, and define its new strategic plan which will try to straighten the accounts after three profit warnings and deal with the disappointments of the contract with Dazn for the streaming of football.
If KKR overcomes all these uncertainties and respects the constraints imposed by the Government on the defense of Tim's employment, technologies, security and network, it is not illusory to think that the takeover bid could be triggered in the spring even if the market has already made it clear to the Americans that the initial offer of 0,505 euros per share is only a starting point and will have to be adjusted upwards.
The takeover bid would certainly be a turning point but not an arrival point because, in compliance with the commitments undertaken with the Government in order to avoid the exercise of Golden power, KKR will have to guarantee public control of the Tim network: a hypothesis which makes plausible the division of the company between the service business and the ownership and management of the network which should end up in the hands of CDP and subsequently integrate with that of Open Fiber to create the single national network. The interview in today's Sole 24 Ore with the president of the CDP, Giovanni Gorno Tempini, leaves no room for doubt: "We are for the single network and we have always been".
The model could be that of Snam Rete Gas and, as in that case, remain or return to the Stock Exchange but under the control of Cassa depositi e prestiti. In short, the objectives are clear – Tim's services to the Americans and the CDP network with recognition of a role also for the French of Vivendi, who are currently Tim's first shareholder – but the race is in stages and not without uncertainties.
It is to be hoped that politics will maintain the attitude of careful surveillance but of neutrality assumed by Draghi government faced with the US project and don't get into trouble like at the time of the Telecom takeover bid at the end of the 90s which, having passed the debts of the offer to the company, ended up sinking Telecom Italia (today Tim).
GENERALI: OUT OF THE CANDIDATES AND COUNTERPLANES OF THE CALTA-DEL VECCHIO CONCORDATION
With small steps and with incessant purchases, the Caltagirone-Del Vecchio-Crt consortium is getting closer day after day to the shareholding that Mediobanca holds in Generali in view of the duel of the company meeting on 29 April next. Mediobanca currently holds 4,43% of the capital (in addition to De Agostini's 17,25) thanks also to the 1,14% share package borrowed, while the alternative consortium reaches 16,07% thanks to the 7,98 6,62% of Caltagirone, 1,47% of Del Vecchio and XNUMX% of Cassa di Risparmio di Torino.
It is possible that the purchases will continue and that at the end of April meeting the two sides will end up equaling each other. But the central point will be to understand how the institutional funds that hold 34,75% of the shares will line up and that will be the real tip of the balance, together with the 7,93% held by other investors and the 22,59% held by to retail.
To understand how the institutional funds will orientate, it is essential that the curtain rises and that not only the consortium headed by Mediobanca, which supports the reappointment of CEO Philippe Donnet and his new business plan, but also the opposing consortium discover their cards . Not only insurance and specifically real estate interests of Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone need Leonardo DelVecchio have in the past warned institutional investors about possible conflicts of interest but the two great old men of Italian finance have only one way to ward off doubts and suspicions: to present a team of candidates to lead Generali who prove to be indisputable in terms of independence and competence professional. Some reflection is underway but the hypothesized names are not the ones that are circulating.
But, together with the new team, it is also necessary that a counter-plan is finally presented to the market which does not limit itself to promising more dividends but which makes it clear whether Del Vecchio and Caltagirone's desire for greatness in Generali is just a bluff to oust Donnet or has solid foundations. And here words and promises are useless but money is needed.
To make the Lion grow and shorten the distances from Axa and Allianz, admitted and not granted that it is still possible, we need fine investments and acquisitions that only strong capital increases – which Generali hasn't known for twenty years – can guarantee. Caltagirone and Del Vecchio are ready to make available to their team all the resources necessary to promote the capital increases what are the basis of the coveted leap in quality? In short, men and money. Barring unforeseeable last-minute agreements between the two fronts, the battle at the end of April will be played out on this terrain and, however it ends, it will certainly have a tailspin: in Mediobanca.
If Caltagirone and Del Vecchio win in Generali, it is likely that they will claim it showdown also in Piazzetta Cuccia whose management opposed their takeover of the Trieste company. Even more so if they were to lose. The Generali meeting at the end of April will therefore be a decisive stage in the battle for the conquest of the noble wing of Italian finance, but the fireworks will not end that day. 2022 promises to be a year not to be forgotten.
