Will MSC’s Aponte also fly with Ita Airways after Italo?
Facts, moves, aims and scenarios for the MSC group in Italy
What will be Aponte's next Italian operation with MSC after Italo-NTV?
MSC of the family headed by Gianluigi Aponte (in the photo), leader in the cruise sector, is about to conclude the purchase of Italo-NTV trains with the negotiation which is "in the final stages". According to today's newspaper La Repubblica, the operation is worth 4 billion. MSC should take control of the company with the American fund Gip retaining a stake. The presidency will remain with Luca Cordero di Montezemolo with Gianbattista La Rocca as CEO. Flavio Cattaneo (now head of Enel), Giovanni Punzo and Peninsula Capital should leave the company while Allianz, which owns 11.5% of the capital, should maintain its position.
According to what Il Messaggero had anticipated, MSC's share (50 or 51%) is one of the points still open, and depends on antitrust reasons. The closing however, as Il Messaggero explains, "is expected by the end of the year when the approval of the European Antitrust will arrive because MSC is domiciled in Switzerland".
The green light from the EU Antitrust for the acquisition of Ita Airways will sanction the entry of the Lufthansa group into the Italian company with an initial minority share of 41%, through a capital injection of 325 million euros. Lufthansa itself provides the update on the timing of the operation in the note on the second quarter results.
MSC was Lufthansa's previous partner in the ITA operation: in January 2022 the consortium formed by MSC and Lufthansa aimed to control 80% of the Italian carrier but the offer did not take off.
Despite the failed bid for Ita Airways, MSC has shown that it still wants to enter air transport and last September launched an air cargo division to integrate sea freight transport with air transport. MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA has started to develop MSC Air Cargo , “a new solution to respond to customer requests and a complementary service to the container freight transport offering”, the company communicated.
However, the owner and founder of MSC Gianluigi Aponte has not stopped looking at the air transport sector. Recently in Roman circles there is the feeling that the possibility of MSC for Ita is always open especially if the operation with Lufthansa does not go through.
And the stalemate – reported by the Giornale – that exists on the Italy-Germany match on Ita-Lufthansa in Brussels could favor a change of course for the Italian company now controlled by the Ministry of Economy.
Insiders are also observing the moves of Ita's company head, Antonino Turicchi, who has excellent relations with the owner of the Treasury, the Northern League member Giancarlo Giorgetti.
In June-July Turicchi played a double game: on the one hand he told Fabio Lazzerini that he had to send him away because the government intended to appoint Joerg Eberhart as administrator already in July, on the other hand a negative response was obtained (or hoped for?) from the Vestager offices to the appointment of Eberhart, former number one of Air Dolomiti. Therefore, Lazzerini's delegations that should have gone to the German manager were taken by him and he became the real company manager .
An astute observer in the government majority that follows the sector wonders: is it really convenient for Turicchi for Lufthansa to enter if its powers are then reduced or it is completely set aside? Question with a hundred guns.
Lufthansa and the Ministry of Economy are bound by a stringent agreement from which only the German group has viable ways out. Therefore the Mef cannot tell Lufthansa that it has changed its mind. However, if the EU Commission is slow to give the green light and ITA runs out of money in the meantime, only a (moneyed) private individual could provide it, no longer the Mef.
Who is the wealthy private individual? Obviously Aponte, who does not have a hostile attitude towards the Meloni government, on the contrary, also for purely corporate rather than ideal reasons.
The Aponte link with Salvini/Lega is in fact obligatory given MSC's interests in ports (a matter under the jurisdiction of the Transport Department governed precisely by the leader of the League).
Until the next episode of the feuilleton Ita .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/aponte-msc-italo-ita-air/ on Fri, 29 Sep 2023 12:50:34 +0000.