Atlantia SpA is an Italian holding company, controlled by the Benetton family, whose primary asset is Autostrade per l’Italia, the Italian toll-road operator. The main business interests of Atlantia are in infrastructure. The company which has been so far concentrated on projects in Italy now wants to reduce its dependence on the country as per its Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Castellucci.
In addition to highways in Italy, the division also owns assets in Brazil and Chile. Recently, Atlantia, which also controls Rome’s two airports, led the consortium which agreed to buy 60 percent of France’s third-biggest airport, Nice-Cote d’Azur, for 1.2 billion euros. The Rome-base company also signed a deal to buy 21 percent of SAVE SpA, the company which runs Venice Airport.
Now in an effort to raise further funds for internationalisation the company is preparing to sell a minority stake in Autostrade. Autostarde is currently valued at about 15 billion euros ($16.5 billion). It represents about four-fifths of Atlantia’s 18.6 billion-euro market value currently. Atlantia is expected to dispose of about 15 percent of Autostrade and raise 2.5 billion euros to help fund its overseas expansion.
Source: Bloomberg, October 18, 2016