Five years after the purchase of TotalErg, IP Gruppo Api buys Esso’s assets and activities in Italy, relating to fuels and refining.
The family business Brachetti Peretti, the leading private fuel player, has signed a binding agreement with Esso Italiana. If the Italian group thus strengthens itself, in a very delicate moment for the energy sector, on the other hand ExxonMobil, which has been present in Italy since 1891, is leaving the country.
The most important asset that changes hands is the SARPOM refinery in Trecate (Novara), in which IP already held a 25% stake and in which he now has 100% ownership. A strategic hub, with its entire distribution network, especially in the North West area of the country which lies between Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardy.
“The purchase transaction includes all of Esso’s fuel sales activities in Italy, 75% of the SARPOM Refinery in Trecate (province of Novara), in which IP already held the rest of the shareholding, ownership of the deposits of Genoa, Arluno and Chivasso, that of Engycalor Energia Calore, which controls the bitumen deposit in Naples and handles sales to customers businessand 12.5% of the company Disma, which manages the aviation fuel depot at Malpensa Airport”, details a note.
Seen from the point of view of IP, “the operation makes it possible to strengthen the Group’s production volumes, with a refining capacity that doubles (from about 5 to almost 10 million tons/year) thanks to the 100% control of the Trecate Refinery and the logistics system connected to it”. Considering that the Italian refining capacity is 87 million tons, IP reaches an 11.5% share of the Italian market.
From the operation the 2,200 service stations remain outside which still bear the Esso brand, if only because between 2012 and 2018 they had already been sold by ExxonMobil. However, IP will acquire the so-called “branded wholesaler” supply contracts, i.e. which do not only concern the sale to the final consumer but also to intermediate companies (B2B). “The Esso sign will therefore remain on Italian roads”, explains the note.
“We are satisfied with this acquisition” – he commented Ugo Brachetti Peretti, President of IP – “thanks to which people, professionalism and high quality production assets become part of our Group. We have done a great job to complete this operation, which will allow us to face the challenge of energy security in the mobility sector as protagonists and which will enable the next steps we intend to take in the Group’s transition increasingly towards sustainability.”
The transaction is expected to close within the next six months, following the approval of theGuarantor Authority for Competition and the Market and other competent authorities. In the acquisition, CC & Soci was financial advisor of IP. The M&A legal assistance was handled by Gatti Pavesi Bianchi Ludovici while the due diligence legal and tax matters as well as antitrust were handled, respectively, by Carabba & Partners and BonelliErede in coordination with the responsible corporate functions.
The Economy Minister also commented on the operation, Giancarlo Giorgetti: “I welcome the announcement of the acquisition of Esso by Ip. It is the strengthening of an Italian operator in a rapidly evolving market and in a complex moment. The government is committed and carefully monitors the entire sector also in Europe”, he writes on Twitter.