Acea’s strategy is a bone of contention in the multi-utility board
Other than hostesses mistreated by the managing director. The object of the dispute in Acea is anything but. Pulled by the jacket by the mayor of Rome, Robert GualtieriAcea’s number one, Fabrizio Palermo, has promised to enter the game for the new waste-to-energy plant in Rome. After all, the manager could not have done otherwise given that Gualtieri himself wanted him at the top of Acea with a blitz in September last year.
And that is, a handful of months after the expiry of the council (with the 2022 budget, on April 14, 2023) and before the new center-right government took office. Precisely he who in the CDP had been wanted by the 5 Star Movement. Not surprisingly, after the exit of the former president, Michaela CastelliPalermo immediately moved to put together a consortium of Italian entrepreneurs for the construction of the new Santa Palomba plant in Rome, as reported by il Messaggero, a newspaper of the Caltagirone group, a shareholder of Acea itself.
The state of the art
Once in Acea, Palermo found a thriving situation and the prospect of new investments. Its predecessor Joseph Gola, which he had replaced Stefano Donnarumma, a manager close to the former president Castelli, has in fact left a company with growing results. Revenues in the first half of 2021 recorded an increase of 29% to 2.35 billion and the ebitda increased by 10% to 682 million. Furthermore, the guidance has been revised upwards for the whole of 2022 with the prospect of a profit of 10% to 183 million, as highlighted by the board of directors in a note on the half-yearly report.
For this reason, in the financial community, considering Acea’s results, the anticipated replacement of top management has raised many questions. Fact is that the handover of deliveries in advance of the natural expiry of the board it also brought about a change of strategy. With greater attention to the environment and therefore with the waste-to-energy project at the forefront. All normal, in the rules. Especially when it’s at stake a 700 million euro plant capable of incinerating 600,000 tons of waste a year. A great deal for those who build it and those who manage it.
And herein lies the problem
However Acea is not exactly a specialized operator in the waste segment. But it is rather a company focused on the management of the water sector where it achieves impressive results both in terms of turnover and margins. Just take a look at the results of the group to realize it. In the first nine months of 2022, Acea recorded a gross margin (EBITDA) of over one billion, up by 7.8%. Of this figure, 52% comes from the water sector. 26% is attributable to energy and just 8% to the environment segment. The rest is done by the Generation sector (8%) and Commercial-Trading (6%). In other words, the environment is a decidedly residual sector of activity. For this reason, according to some observers, the group could seriously evaluate the possibility of concentrating investments on the big water business or, at most, concentrate on the two plants it already has: the one in Terni and the one in San Vittore.
Why then should the group strengthen the environmental division?
Certainly it is a profitable deal in which perhaps, in addition to the Municipality of Rome, the other two shareholders of Acea, the French water multinational, are also interested Suez (23%) e the Caltagirone construction group (5.4%). On balance, therefore, there is a major conflict of interest for the shareholders of the multi-utility controlled by the municipality of Rome with 51%. Just enough to make those of you take a step back governance he understands this and also knows that there are many rules in the management of relations with related parties.
Moreover, Acea is not new to complex situations
It is not the first time that the issue of conflict of interest emerges clearly in Acea. In the days of crazy bills, a good deal of call center business from Acea 800 were managed by E-care, a company in which the builder-publisher was a 15% shareholder through Caltagirone Editorejust behind Astrim (47.8%), controlled at the time by Unicredit.
At the time, the management of the surplus phone calls from Acea customers, won without a tender in 2008, proved to be a real goose that lays the golden eggs, allowing E-Care to return to profit, thanks also to the Acea call center orders . Godsend for the company accounts. And for its shareholders, of course. As perhaps the profitable business of waste and the construction of the plant that Gualtieri wants at all costs to stop the waste emergency in the capital could also be. And not only.