Italy’s railway stations manager Grandi Stazioni announced very good results for 2014 in the last few days that will be included in the information memorandum that advisor Rotschild is preparing to deliver to a big number of potential investors as retail activities of the group are on sale for a price tag that is said to be 700-800 million euros (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
The group is controlled with a 60% stake by the Italian rail operator Ferrovie dello Stato (advised on the the deal by Gianni Origoni Grippo law firm) while the remaining 40% is held by Eurostazioni spa (Edizione srl , Vianini lavori, Pirelli e Sncf, advised by Legance law firm).
Grandi Stazioni actually double net profits to 20 million euros in 2014 from 10 millions in 2013 and will pay a 14 million euros dividend to its shareholders. Revenues were slightly up by 2% to 210 millions but ebitda reached 58 millions (+29%) and ebit was 35 millions (+52%) while the net financial debt dropped by 7.8% to 154 millions.
Last May Grandi Stazioni’s board approved a non proportional spin off of its activities in three different companies (see here the press release). Retail activities have been spun off in a newco called GS Retail, while real estate and engineering activites have been spun off in other two newcos, respectively GS Real Estate and GS Rail.
Soma days ago the Daily Mail wrote that the deal is worth 434 million pounds while the newspaper was stressing that both Cinven and Blackstone are interested in the dossier. However these two private equity firms are not alone. There is a very long list of private equity firms and industrial groups who are lining up for the deal.
Potential investors partecipating to the auction are said to be sovereign funds from Abu Dhabi (Adia), Qatar (Qia) , SIngapore (Gic) and Italy itself (Fondo Strategico Italiano); real estate operators with a retail sector focus such as Klepierre and Unibal Rodamco; private equity funds besides Cinven and Blackstone such as Bain Capital, BC Partners, Carlyle Clessidra, Cvc and Permira; and infrastructure funds such as Antin, Ardian, Deutsche Bank or Italy’s F2i.
