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Atlantia headquarters in Rome: Several billionaire investors are trying to take over the infrastructure giant
Photo: Alessandro Bianchi / REUTERS
The Italian billionaire family Benetton goes on the offensive in the tug-of-war over the Italian infrastructure holding company Atlantia.
Together with the US financial investor Blackstone, the owner of the fashion empire submitted a 12.7 billion euro takeover bid for the remaining shares in Atlantia.
The Benettons already hold 33.1 percent of the Italian group.
Atlantia operates, among other things, toll roads and airports in Southern Europe and Latin America.
With their offer, Benetton and Blackstone seem to want to create facts.
Because they are getting ahead of the infrastructure investors Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and the Canadian Brookfield, who had also put out feelers to Atlantia: the two companies had approached the Italian billionaire family to buy Atlantia from them, but were rebuffed there.
Bidding competition sends Atlantia shares skyrocketing
The Benettons and Blackstone are now offering 23 euros per share.
That's a premium of 24.4 percent to the closing price on April 5 before takeover rumors surfaced.
Overall, Atlantia is valued at almost 19 billion euros on the stock exchange, including debt, the company is worth around 58 billion.
Speculations about a bidding war had already caused Atlantia shares to shoot up by 20 percent in the past ten days.
The competition from GIP and Brookfield has teamed up with the Spanish developer Florentino Pérez.
Pérez' construction group ACS, like Atlantia, has a stake in Germany's largest construction company, Hochtief.
After a takeover, Atlantia's motorway toll concessions – for example in France, Spain and South America – are to be transferred to ACS.
Pérez, also known as the president and patron of the Real Madrid football club, could use it to reorganize his empire.
Italians involved in Hochtief, but want to get out
The Spanish motorway operator Abertis has been held jointly by ACS (30 percent) and Atlantia (50 percent plus one share) since 2017, and Hochtief has a 20 percent stake in it.
ACS holds a 50.4 percent majority in Hochtief, while Atlantia has a 16 percent stake in the Essen-based group.
The Italians had already signaled that they wanted to get off there.
Hochtief, on the other hand, is in the process of completely swallowing up the Australian subsidiary Cimic and thus simplifying the group structure.
If the Benettons and Blackstone are successful in the takeover, the family will hold 65 percent of Atlantia and the US investor 35 percent.
The Italian banking foundation CRT has already agreed to offer its 4.5 percent stake to Benetton.
Both bidders fully support Atlantia's long-term strategy and are prepared to finance opportunities for further acquisitions in the infrastructure and mobility sectors.
Atlantia will soon receive a blessing of eight billion euros from the state.
After a motorway bridge collapsed in Genoa in 2018, killing 43, the government in Rome urged Atlantia to sell its stake in the country's largest toll road operator, Autostrade per l'Italia, to a consortium led by the state bank CDP.
Atlantia wants to use the money to focus more on infrastructure technology, such as toll collection and billing.
At the beginning of this year, the Italians bought the road traffic division Yunex Traffic from Siemens for 950 million euros.
ktz/Reuters
