CDP EQUITY, BLACKSTONE & MACQUARIE take majority stake in AUTOSTRADE PER L'ITALIA

A consortium of CDP Equity, Blackstone Infrastructure Partners and Macquarie Asset Management completed the acquisition of Atlantia’s 88.06% stake in Autostrade per l’Italia on 5 May 2022, at an enterprise value of €18.8bn. Atlantia received a total consideration of 8.199 billion euros, including the ticking fee accrued, for a transaction that valued 100% of the motorway operator’s equity at 9.3 billion euros. At the time of the deal, Autostrade per l’Italia generated revenue of €1–10bn and an EBITDA of €1–10bn, an EBITDA margin of [members only], on a network carrying around 4 million travellers a day. The consortium acted through Holding Reti Autostradali, a vehicle incorporated in Italy for the purpose, held by CDP Equity with 51% and by Blackstone and funds managed by Macquarie with 24.5% each. The sale brought to an end a dispute that had begun with the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa in 2018, in which 43 people died, and which had put the Benetton family’s control of Italy’s motorway network in question. Prime Minister Mario Draghi gave his approval to the transaction. The price had been contested throughout the negotiations. The consortium submitted four successive proposals before reaching agreement, and minority shareholders of Atlantia, among them the hedge fund TCI, argued that Autostrade was worth more than 12 billion euros on a regulated asset base approach. A rival approach from ACS valued the company at 10 billion euros but did not proceed. Atlantia’s shareholders approved the sale in June 2021, and completion followed almost a year later, once the closing conditions and the required authorisations had been obtained. The new shareholders set out to fund an investment programme covering the whole network, to upgrade it through digitalisation and innovation, to make maintenance more efficient and to bring long-term stability to the governance of a key part of Italy’s infrastructure. After signing, the consortium planned to open exploratory talks with the minority shareholders holding the remaining 11.94%, who had tag-along rights.