Because Arcelor Mittal enjoys the entry of Invitalia (Mef) in the former Ilva
With the entry of Invitalia del Mef in the former Ilva, Arcelor Mittal will discharge the liabilities to the State and will continue to preside over the Italian steel market. The comment by Gianclaudio Torlizzi, former editor-in-chief at Dow Jones, now general manager of T-Commodity, a financial consulting firm
"If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change."
The sentence contained in the Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa probably provides the best interpretative key on the question of the former Ilva.
Yes, because in the end the agreement signed between Invitalia and ArcelorMittal, which provides for the return of what was the first European steel plant in the hands of the State, risks not only not making any concrete improvement compared to the stalemate matured in recent years (in the course of which the production of the plant has fallen from 6 to 3.5 million tons); but to end up as yet another failure of industrial policy.
The reasons for such skepticism are justified in a single word contained in the press release issued by ArcelorMittal : “Deconsolidation”.
The Luxembourg multinational will in fact separate the newco created with Invitalia from its consolidated balance sheet.
A decision that betrays the intention to unload the accrued liabilities onto the newco.
But beware: even if in the end the state will be able to carry out the nationalization plan, rising from the current 40% to 60%, it cannot ignore the support of the steel group in ordinary management. In fact, driving a steel plant is a complicated matter that only a naive person can think of entrusting to some state boyar.
The conclusion therefore is that Arcelor will continue to maintain its hold on the Italian steel market (subject in recent months to very strong tension also due to the decline in production of Ilva), while discharging the liabilities to the State.
Chapeau.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/perche-arcelor-mittal-gode-per-lingresso-di-invitalia-mef-nellex-ilva/ on Fri, 16 Apr 2021 06:49:03 +0000.