Pillarstone Italy is in exclusive talks to buy control of Italy’s leading operator of tlc network Sirti, the turnaround private equity operator managed by Kkr told last December 28th (see Reuters here).
The private equity firm aims at strengthen the company financial position by injecting new cash and the closing of the deal is expected to happen shortly in order to allow the company restructuring by the first months of 2016, the press release said.
The auction is managed by Lazard and Pillarstone has been working at the dossier for some months (see here a previous post by BeBeez) and had beated bids coming from other competitors such as the China-based manufacturer and supplier of telecommunications equipment Zte corporation an Italy’s turanaround private equity specialist Orlando italy.
Sirti is now controlled by Intesa Sanpaolo ( with a 26.84% stake, after having converted a mandatory convetible bond some years ago; the bank is also a big lender for as much as 200 million euros) while the remaing 73.16% of Sirti’s capital is owned by Hiit, a parent holding where are concentrated stakes by industrial shareholders (Techint), private equity funds (Investindustrial, Clessidra and 21 Investimenti) and mezzanine private debt funds (Ver Capital e Emisys Capital).
The group was burdened by 277 million euros of net financial debt at the end of 2014, while its business is in good shape. The interim results at June 30th 2015 (download here the press release) showed revenues for 306 million euros (7% up from June 2014), an ebitda in line with a 10% growth for the year end (ebitda was 40 million euros in 2014, when it had reach 630 millions in revenues) and positve ebit for the first time in six years (see last June’s interview by Sirti’s ceo Stefano Lorenzi on Corriere Comunicazioni).
