The operation had been in the air for days and had been widely anticipated by the markets, causing, since the beginning of April, a sharp rise in the price of Atlantia on the Milan Stock Exchange. Thursday, April 14, the Benetton family and the American investment fund Blackstone made public a takeover of this group managing many highways and airports. The stated objective is to create a new company to buy back all of the group’s securities, in order to delist it, thus securing the“Italianness” of an infrastructure giant, by sheltering it from covetousness.
By setting the buyback price at 23 euros per share (plus an exceptional dividend of 74 cents), the offer values Atlantia at 19 billion euros, and it seems to have been favorably received by the markets. Thursday evening, at the close of the Milan Stock Exchange, the Atlantia share price had increased by nearly 5%, thus joining the value proposed by the Benetton family.
But the general impression is that this maneuver is only an introduction, aimed at taking Spain’s Grupo ACS by surprise, whose appetite for Atlantia is no mystery to anyone – the construction giant, headed by Florentino Perez (also president of Real Madrid), announced at the beginning of April that he was working, with the funds Global Infrastructure Partners and Brookfield, on a takeover bid aimed above all at seizing the motorway concessions of Atlantica. From now on, it is his counter-attack that is expected in the coming days.
A cozy war chest
Concessionaire of nearly 10,000 kilometers of motorways around the world and manager of five airports (including those of Rome-Fiumicino and Nice), the group, which made more than 600 million euros in profits in 2021, has anything to arouse covetousness. For the Benettons, who so far hold more than 33% through their Edizione holding, this asset is of paramount importance: much more than the trade in wool sweaters, the source of the clan’s fortune, it is he, henceforth, who constitutes the heart of the family patrimony.
For the new president of Edizione, Alessandro Benetton, who arrived at the head of the group in January, this operation is like a baptism of fire. To achieve his ends, he has a comfortable war chest: the 8 billion euros that Atlantia must earn from the sale of Autostrade per l’Italia to a consortium led by the Italian Caisse des Dépôts (partner, for this operation, to the Blackstone and Macquarie funds).
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