ROME: Italy’s Treasury has confirmed that it is selling a 5.7 per cent stake in state-controlled utility Enel, worth about €2.2bn, in an accelerated book-build, a long-anticipated move that is a key plank of the government’s privatisation programme.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Mediobanca and UniCredit are joint bookrunners on the deal, the Treasury said in a statement.
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. The government of prime minister Matteo Renzi is seeking to take advantage of improved market sentiment about Italy amid signs that the eurozone’s third-largest economy will this year pull out of a crippling triple-dip recession and return to growth, according to people participating in the deal. The Bank of Italy forecasts at least 0.5 per cent growth this year and 1.5 per cent growth in 2016.
A €12bn privatisation programme aimed at reducing Italy’s €2.1tn debt pile was put on hold last year as the country sunk back into recession, but Italy’s finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan indicated this week that he intended to restart the process.
The Enel placement comes a day after Japan’s Hitachi paid €2bn to take control of rolling stock company Ansaldo from state-controlled defence group Finmeccanica.
Stakes in Italy’s post office and its railway station network could be next on the block later this year, Mr Padoan has said, although government sources suggest a stock market listing of the post office could slip again into the first half of 2016.
The Treasury owns 31 per cent of Enel and a placement of 5 per cent of its shares is seen as the easiest state-controlled asset to sell. Mr Renzi told the FT last year he would put a tranche of Enel on the market as soon as economic conditions improved.
Bankers expect the sale of 5 per cent state-controlled oil group Eni, considered a more strategic asset by the government, to be more distant, if not put off all together.
