It’s now done for ITA Airwaysanother piece of Made in Italy taste and elegance that ends up in foreign hands, but with a great advantage: this time it is the Tesoro and demands some reassurance about the future of the national airline, which will join the big family Lufthansa, also involved in terms of guarantees, especially on the discontinuity with the old Alitalia and the thousands of disputes brought by former employees. The choice of Lufthansa had come after a long and complex period of evaluation of the alternatives.
Negotiation at the finish line: today the announcement
The very long negotiation between the management and the lawyers of Lufthansa and the representatives of the MEF has reached the last mile: today the agreement will be formally announced for the sale to the Germans of 40% of the company. The MEF is currently the sole shareholder of Ita Airways.
Sources close to the dossier have confirmed that the contract between Lufthansa and the MEF will be fsigned today in Rome and that the CEO of the German company, Carsten Spohr, is expected at the dicastery in Via XX Settembre for signature.
This morning, on the sidelines of a conference, the Minister of the Economy Giancarlo Giorgettiwho is in Rome today and will be in Trento tomorrow for the Festival of Economics, confirmed that Spohr will arrive in Rome and there will be some news.
MEF committed to finalizing the agreement
Meanwhile, the technicians of the Ministry of Economy and Finance are making the final filings to the text of the contract, especially in terms of clauses and some guaranteesthose requested by the German company and those demanded by the government.
The signing of the preliminary contract, which will take place today, will then be followed by the routine go-ahead from the Court of Auditors and the Italian and European Antitrust, to reach the closing definitivo in autumn.
L’acquisto step-by-step
The Cologne group is ready to buy a 40% share now of the capital of ITA Airways, now 100% owned by the MEF, through the subscription of a reserved capital increase for a value slightly higher than 300 million euros.
Subsequently, the Germans will take over the majority of ITA, coming to hold by 2025 90% of the Italian company, which will join the large Lufthansa family, already present with other brands in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium. The remaining 50% will be detected for approx 500 million after reaching breakeven (draw).
A question of connections
The long phase of the negotiations, as well as the financial details, was conditioned by the more industrial elements. The Italian government, in fact, has demanded reassurances on the fact that ITA Airways will maintain direct long-range operationsbeing one of the hubs of international traffic.
The key element of the negotiations is also the future of the two airports of Fiumicino and Malpensawith a rebalancing in favor of the Capital and a recovery of importance of the airport of Nuts.
Recently, during the shareholders’ meeting, Spohr called the Italian market “strategic” and so the hubs of Malpensa and Fiumicino.
