Will Air France-KLM, Delta and the American investment fund Certares have to give up the partial takeover bid for ITA Airways, the Italian national airline born from the ashes of Alitalia?
Remember that it was this consortium that had been chosen by the previous Italian government to carry out exclusive negotiations. But at the beginning of November things were already beginning to get complicated with the decision not to renew this period of exclusivity without giving details.
What adds to Air France-KLM in the expectation. And the company can now frankly doubt since according to the Corriere della Serra, Lufthansa, whose bid with MSC had initially been scrapped, gained access to ITA Airways’ data room, a sort of step during bid formulation. The German giant would go on an adventure only this once.
Lufthansa offers more and has settled its debts
The Italian newspaper evokes a sale of 65-70% of ITA’s shares to Lufthansa. The rest would stay in the Italian state stock market when Certares said he was willing to pay 350 million euros to acquire 50% plus one share in ITA.
These prevarications do not help the Italian company that continues to lose money and therefore value. At the beginning of November, the Italian State gave the green light to a new injection of 400 million euros of public funds into the company.
And Brussels had given the green light in September 2021 to a public aid of 1,350 million euros, as long as it ends up flying by itself in the long term.
Why this potential investment? If the far-right Italian Brothers party, which won the last legislative elections, has long expressed its rejection of the privatization of ITA, it ended up accepting the principle.
But the model proposed by Certares is not unanimous with Air France, which would not invest directly in the capital of the Italian airline, contenting itself with being a business partner. Insufficient weight for opponents of this proposal.
Air France-KLM has its hands tied by the conditions requested by the European Commission in exchange for public aid received to overcome the Covid-19 crisis, which prevent it from acquiring a stake of more than 10% in a company in the sector. For its part, Lufthansa has reimbursed all public aid received. And his offer was much higher than that of Certares: 850 million euros for 80% of ITA.
Source: BFM TV
