Autostrade, here’s how Blackstone and Macquarie will milk Aspi (Cdp)
In the company that controls Autostrade per l'Italia (Aspi), the shareholders' agreements are in favor of the foreign funds Blackstone and Macquarie. For this reason Scannapieco (head of the Cdp group) wants to modify the agreements concocted by the Palermo management of the Cassa through a manager then hired by the Macquarie fund … Facts, names, numbers and reconstructions
Other than nationalization. Other than republishing. Other than the return to the State – through the CDP, controlled by the Ministry of Economy – of the concessionaire Autostrade per l'Italia.
The much heralded in the cricket-dem era "goes retro private" from the motorways – when at the top of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti was Fabrizio Palermo, now the new head of the Acea group at the behest of Pd, M5s, Caltagirone and D'Alema – on the other hand, a delivery of the company's cash to the foreign funds Blackstone and Macquarie was transformed.
Here are all the news.
On 3 May, two days before the definitive contract for the purchase of Aspi, the shareholders' agreements were signed between the shareholders of the Hra holding which holds 88% of Aspi: Cdp Equity, wholly owned by Cdp, has 51 24.5 per cent of the shares of Hra, the American fund Blackstone and the Australian fund Macquarie each.
According to what the newspaper Domani revealed today, point 6.5.1. of the shareholders' agreements, entitled "Dividend policy", states: "As a general rule, the Parties have undertaken to ensure that Hra and the entities belonging to the Group (therefore Aspi and its subsidiaries, ed ) distribute to their respective shareholders, on half-yearly basis, the available cash resulting from the financial statements ".
“In practice – explained Giorgio Meletti of the daily directed by Stefano Feltri – every euro of profit will automatically become a euro of dividend. Not a single euro will be set aside, and if there is a new pandemic-like emergency, taxpayers will again be paying "refreshments" for hundreds of millions, as happened in 2020 and 2021 ".
According to Start 's reconstruction, the document dated May 3 could not fail to be signed by Cdp because there were conditions precedent that expired for having various authorizations (such as that of the Court of Auditors). But the current top management of the CDP group, headed by the managing director Dario Scannapieco, aims to radically modify those pacts considered unbalanced to the detriment of the Cassa, therefore of the Ministry of Economy and therefore of the State.
But who designed this scaffolding that favors foreign funds Blackstone and Macquarie during the Palermo management of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti?
The negotiation with the two funds Blackstone and Macquarie was managed by the CEO of Cdp Equity Pierpaolo Di Stefano, and by the manager Gianluca Ricci who until last May, that is, until the signing of the Aspi purchase agreement and the shareholders' agreements, was was president of the holding company Hra.
It may have been a coincidence or not, the fact is that on 5 September the Macquarie fund announced the hiring of Ricci as managing director , with the task, among other things, of managing the investment of the Australian fund in Aspi.
With the paradox that it will be Ricci himself who will negotiate on behalf of the Australian fund the revision of the shareholders' agreements that the current number one of Cdp, Dario Scannapieco , in agreement with the outgoing government Draghi but also with the incoming one which will be chaired by Giorgia Meloni ( having regard to the past positions of the Brothers of Italy on the issue) intends to set out to protect the State more and better than what was done during previous governments and previous management of the CDP,
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/autostrade-ecco-come-blackstone-e-macquarie-mungeranno-aspi-cdp/ on Wed, 12 Oct 2022 07:26:03 +0000.