Italian security group Axitea spa is ready for its lenders’ verdict next September 30th as banks are due to vote the restructuring plan proposed by Axitea’s shareholder, that is Stirling Square Capital Partners private equity firm.
Axitea is a leading provider of armed security services and electronic surveillance systems in the Italian market. The company operates in armed guarding, patrolling, alarm monitoring, cash handling, satellite tele-security and integrated security systems. The group has been created by Stirling Square starting from Sicurglobal spa and adding on a series of small other companies which have been acquired in the last few years.
The group however has been struggling with repayment of its debt (which is on the books of Unicredit, Monte Paschi di Siena, Interbanca and Banca Popolare di Milano) so that it filed for backrupcty proceeding in October 2014 and presented a debt restructuring plan to the banks last Febraury while Stirling Square committed to a new 32 million euros capital injection (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
“Axitea is now a completely renewed company, with a positive economic results but it still has to face its lenders’ vote. If lenders do not approve the proposed restructuring plan, about 1,500 people will loose their job”, Axitea’s ceo, Marco Bavazzano, said yesterday in a press release. “After all these efforts, we hope and ask our lending banks to accept our restructuring debt proposal”, he added.
Axitea reached 83 million euros in reenues in 2014 with a 5.6% ebitda margin and a net financial debt of 82 million euros. The company’s industrial plan sees the ebitda margin to grow to 10.5% by 2018.
Axitea said yesterday that revenues grwe by 17.5% in Q2 2015 from Q1 and that in June and July reenues have been higher than the ones reached in the last 18 months, while customers’ insolveny ratio keeps on going down.