The Atlantia stock jumped by 9.16% to 14.48 euros yesterday at the Milan Stock Exchange, after the announcement made on Tuesday October 13th of exclusive talks granted to Cassa Depositi Prestiti until next October 18th in order to allow Cdp together national and international co-investors to submit a proposal for a purchase of the entire stake (equal to 88.06%) of the subsidiary Autostrade per l’Italia spa (ASPI) (see the press release here) .
Recall that the Board of Directors of Atlantia had approved on September 24th the “dual track” process to get to the disposal of the 88.06% stake held in ASPI, regardless of the difficulties the company was encountering in direct negotiations with Cdp (see here a previous article by BeBeez), difficulties which, evidently, have been blunted in recent days.
The double track envisages, on the one hand, the hypothesis of a listing of ASPI on the Italian Stock Exchange, after the partial and proportional spin-off of the ASPI stake held by Atlantia in favor of the newco Autostrade Concessioni e Costruzioni spa; and on the other hand, the sale of the entire stake held by Atlantia in Autostrade through a competitive auction, keeping in mind, however, that potential buyers will also be required to purchase the remaining approximately 12% of ASPI’s capital oin the event of exercise the right of co-sale by minority shareholders, namely the consortium formed by Allianz Capital Partners, EDF Invest and DIF, on the one hand, and the Chinese Silk Road Fund, on the other.
As for the potential co-investors of CDP, Blackstone and Macquarie private equity infrastructure funds are rumored to be in a consortium already with Cdp. They are the same private equity firms that had been already named in recent months as potential investors in ASPI, together with a third private eequity giant, that is KKR (see here a previous article by BeBeez). Also in recent months, the involvement of large international pension funds and foreign sovereign funds was runmored, especially those that have subscribed to the third fund of the Italian infrastructure fund F2i, namely GIC, the sovereign fund of Singapore, and PSP, the pension fund for public employees and Canadian law enforcement (see here a previous article by BeBeez). As for the Italian investors, banking foundations were said to be in pole position as potential investors, also considering that a group of foundations are shareholders in Cdp with a total 15.93% stake. Some of the larger foundations, including Cariplo and Compagnia San Paolo and CRT, but not Cariverona, were said to have expressed general availability for an investment (see here a previous article by BeBeez). Apart from banking foundations, interested in supporting Cdp in the capital of ASPI, were also said to be it was also said to be Poste Vita and some Italian pension funds, such as Cassa Forense (lawyers ), Enpam (doctors), Inarcassa (architects) and Cassa Geometri (see here a previous article by BeBeez), maybe through a new fund structured by F2i sgr (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
