The calendar of appointments that will write the privatization of Ita Airways is slowly taking shape. The data room, the executive president Alfredo Altavilla explained in recent days, will close with a postponement of six days, from 30 June initially planned (even before it was 23 May) to Tuesday 5 July.
Then the Ministry of Economy will choose which of the two consortiums in the field (MSC-Lufthansa and the American fund Certares flanked, in the context of a commercial alliance, by Air France / KLM and Delta) to entrust the future of the company. «Hopefully the Mef will be able to express itself within a few days, so basically we are on time. Considering the standards of the old Alitalia, it does not seem to me that an extra week or ten days will shift the axis of the problem », he added, speaking at the conference of the Young Entrepreneurs of Confindustria, in Rapallo.
The position of the Government
In granting more time to the two teams, the Ministry of Economy has substantially clarified that the offers presented are not satisfactory. The two competitors will have until 5 July to refine and strengthen the offers by resubmitting the entire package.
President Altavilla’s alarm: time destroys value
As for the times to arrive at the final choice, the gaze is therefore turned to Via XX Settembre: «It would be a very serious problem if we didn’t know by the summer: time destroys value – underlined the manager -. It is not Altavilla that is in a hurry, it is not the company that is in a hurry: here it is Italy that must be in a hurry, because the future of the company is worth it ». Also because the economic situation is very uncertain and fuel prices are putting the sector to the test: from the 640 dollars per ton on which Ita built the 2022 budget, it has now reached 1,420 dollars.
The offers in the field
The offers received by the Ministry of Economy and Finance are therefore two: that of MSC-Lufthansa and that of the US Certares fund, with the first which seems to be the “strongest”, both from an industrial and financial point of view. Aponte Group and Lufthansa had already presented an expression of interest last January and the circulating figure was between 1.2 and 1.5 billion euros for a majority stake. The US fund instead offers a commercial partnership, without a stake in the capital, with Air France-KLM and Delta Airlines, and according to rumors it would value Ita between 650 and 850 million. The day after Certares’ offer for Ita, Air France-KLM announced a capital increase of € 2.26 billion, putting new shares on the market with the aim of repaying part of the state aid received to tackle the pandemic. At the moment the company cannot invest in other companies if it does not first return the public funds. A move that could therefore reshuffle the cards in the race for Ita Airways.