A hypothesis that the US-based Cerberus Capital Management could end the controversial situation in which Alitalia airline operates by early 2018, raises a number of questions.
However, the hypothesis released by the Italian online daily Corriere.it, regarding the April 30 deadline indicated by the 3 commissioners to sell (in whole or in part) the company in liquidation is further substantiated, and it is destined to be moved further later in time.
The American fund, Cerberus Capital Management, which has recently renewed its interest in the acquisition of the air carrier in full, would, in fact, seek a “new and less restrictive” call in 2018, essentially shortly after the political elections in Italy all now given for certain early March 2018.
In this way, the private equity group – which should be reminded of it – did not submit any binding offer on last October 16 – it would, among other things, take advantage of the work on the accounts operated by Commissioners Luigi Gubitosi, Stefano Palearic, and Enrico Lakes.
A Cerberus Capital Management manager expressed the will of the fund not to have “a large share of what the new company will be,” thus limiting investment in the new Alitalia, limited to 10-20% of its value, estimated at between 800 and 900 million euros.
The goal of the next few months for Cerberus would be to “create those institutional relationships that could serve, even in the form of moral suasion, to unite their offer to that of an air carrier that includes both aviation and handling and with a minority share of the Italian state through the funds of Cassa deposits and loans or F2i.
The latter hypothesis, however, would go in the opposite direction to what was recently announced by the Italian PM, Mr. Paolo Gentiloni, who excluded the presence of a public stake minority in the stock of the new Alitalia.