Observers had been feeling it for several weeks, now it’s official. Air France-KLM announces this Wednesday that it will not present an offer for the airline ITA. Which opens a boulevard for the German Lufthansa, favorite for the resumption of the company born on the ashes of Alitalia.
“Air France-KLM has informed the Italian government that the group will not submit an offer to acquire a stake in ITA’s capital” and “only intends to participate in the process as a potential business partner,” the group told AFP.
It should be remembered that the previous government of Mario Draghi, however, had selected at the end of August the competing offer of the US investment fund Certares, associated with Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines, with a view to opening exclusive negotiations.
But the Italian legislative elections turned the tide with the victory of the far-right Fratelli Italia party, which had urged the outgoing prime minister not to rush a decision.
Lufthansa alone on the runway
In the absence of progress in the discussions, the new economy minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, announced in October his decision not to renew the exclusivity period. At that time, he was skeptical of Air France-KLM, which according to him would have been a simple commercial partner and not an industrial one.
Indeed, an entry into the capital of Air France-KLM could not exceed 10%, because the company’s hands are tied due to the conditions imposed by the European Commission in exchange for public aid received to overcome the Covid-19 crisis. .
However, in early January, the Italian government had published a new decree obliging companies interested in the tender to “acquire the majority of ITA shares available at each stage of the privatization and, in the long term, to own the majority of the capital of ITA on the date of the total withdrawal of the Italian government from this capital”.
A tailor-made decree for Lufthansa, which had taken the same path for its rise in the capital of Brussels Airlines, acquired in two stages, in 2009 and 2016.
according to the newspaper Corriere della SeraLufthansa aims for a stake of around 40%, valued between 180 and 200 million euros, and could reach 100% of the capital in the medium term.
Such an operation “would open up new perspectives not only for Lufthansa, but also for ITA,” said Carsten Spohr, in an interview with the German newspaper. Die Zeit.
“We want and must be even more European. It is no secret that Italy is one of the most important markets for us”, she explained.
Source: BFM TV
