the Benettons are ahead of Florentino Pérez and offer € 12,700 million to keep her

by time news

The Benetton family has partnered with the Blackstone Fund to launch a 100% bid for the Atlantia dealership. Specifically, they offer 23 euros per share, which values ​​the company at almost 19 billion. Since the Benettons already own 33% of the company, what they are offering is paying $ 12.7 billion for the part they do not yet control.

The family movement, which also owns the famous clothing brand that bears his last name, has arrived before that of ACS. The company chaired by Florentino Pérez was the first – last week – to admit its interest in buying Atlantia, but hours later the Benettons (through its holding company, Edizione) assured that they would not stand idly by and that they would move to prevent anyone from taking control of the company.

In the case of ACS, the offer would be made in partnership with GIP (Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund), which already controls 8% of the company, and the American Brookfield. In this case, the valuation was about 15 billion euros.

The main asset at stake in this operation is the Catalan Abertis, a company that just acquired ACS and Atlantia after an alliance between Florentino Pérez and the Benettons in 2018. Atlantia will lose control of Italian highways this year due to the crisis that has dragged on since the collapse of a bridge in Genoa, so that Abertis will have the group’s large toll road concessions.

Since the acquisition in 2018, Abertis has proven to be a great source of profit for its buyers, who have almost doubled their initial investment: they paid 6.909 billion in cash and this year they will have recovered almost 13 billion. In addition, Abertis is expected to continue to distribute generous dividends in the coming years, giving ACS and Atlantia a significant oxygen balloon for their profit and loss accounts.

Improved offer

The joint offer of Edizione and Blackstone means an improvement of 5.3% in the price of the shares this Wednesday (the last day before the presentation of the takeover bid) and 24% compared to the price they set when they went rumors began to emerge about a possible purchase last week.

The goal of Benetton and Blackstone, if they manage to buy Atlantia, is to exclude the dealership from the stock market.

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