Italy will likely strip the Benetton family’s Autostrade per l’Italia SpA of its contract to manage most of the country’s highways, a government minister said, ramping up pressure to end a years-long tussle.
Stefano Patuanelli, minister for economic development, said in an interview in Rome that infrastructure giant Atlantia SpA, which controls Autostrade, has dragged its feet too long in implementing a July agreement on the highway unit.
The company at that time pledged to sell its stake to investors led by state-backed lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti SpA, known as CDP.
“Negotiations over the past few hours lead me to say that not only is revocation possible, but if Atlantia doesn’t realise what’s happening, it’s also the most probable outcome,” Patuanelli said on Thursday. “We have done all we could to make sure we’d respect the agreements taken with Atlantia.”
The government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has given Atlantia 10 more days to agree to its demands, after more than two years of wrangling following the deadly collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa in 2018. Senior coalition party the Five Star Movement, of which Patuanelli is a member, has pushed to revoke the contract.
Shares in Atlantia were halted in Milan after falling 4.7%, and traded down 3.2% at 3:51pm. The stock has lost 37% this year, compared with a 19% decline for the benchmark FTSE MIB index.
Patuanelli said in the interview that the government has a plan to protect jobs for Autostrade’s 7,000 workers, and that it can withstand potential damages from the revocation process, which could amount to as much as €23bn ($27bn).
“For two years Atlantia has been stalling, trying to buy time,” Patuanelli said. “There are 43 deaths we have to take account of. The stance of Cassa Depositi these two months has been co-operative, and the first requirement is that any sale must be at a market price.”
Patuanelli also said he’s “passionate” about assuring Italians feel safe on the highways run under concessions by private operators.
Conte’s government has been divided over how to deal with the Benettons, with the centre-left Democratic Party, the second-biggest group in the coalition, generally taking a more moderate stance than the populist Five Star.
Still, Transportation Minister and Democrat lawmaker Paola De Micheli told reporters she believes revocation of the licence has become more probable, Ansa news agency reported yesterday.
CDP had viewed the negotiations as faltering late last week, after it was notified in a letter that Atlantia was planning to go ahead with a spinoff plan without guarantees over future claims linked to the bridge collapse, people close to the negotiations said at the time.
That came after Atlantia’s board approved a “dual-track” sale of the company’s 88% stake in Autostrade – a step in the disposal process agreed to in July – designed to allow the family to gradually exit the firm.
Atlantia has reaffirmed its commitment to sell Autostrade and to continue talks with CDP for a sale at market value as part of a transparent process, the company said on Tuesday in a statement detailing the letter it sent to the government.