Italy’s Five Star to Back State Lender Bid for Autostrade

(Bloomberg) -- The Five Star Movement party is set to support a bid by Italy’s state-backed lender for the country’s main toll-road network, removing a major hurdle in resolving an ongoing spat between Rome and the billionaire Benetton family.

Five Star, the biggest force in Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s coalition, has long campaigned to punish the Benettons’ Atlantia SpA after the 2018 deadly collapse of a highway viaduct in Genoa. Lawmakers have called for stripping the family’s Autostrade per l’Italia SpA unit of licenses which generate over 2 billion euros ($2.34 billion) in operating profit every year.

The anti-establishment party is now ready to support a government-led bid which would see lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti SpA, or CDP, acquire a majority stake in the concession while dropping threats to revoke licenses, according to government and party officials who asked not to be named discussing a confidential issue. Still, no final agreement has been reached yet and the deal could still fall apart. An Atlantia spokesman declined to comment.

The sale of the stake by Atlantia to CDP is seen as an acceptable way to ensure the Benetton family exits the toll-road operator and a way to avoid kicking off a legally complex revocation process, which could cost the government over 20 billion euros in a worst-case scenario, according to the officials.

Five Star would welcome a central role for CDP, which would keep control of the network in public hands, with government oversight over maintenance, the officials said.

CDP, which agreed to enter into exclusive talks through Oct. 18, is set to present an offer with Macquarie Group Ltd and Blackstone Group Inc. for Atlantia’s 88% stake in Autostrade, according to people familiar with the matter.

The bid is expected to be presented before a board meeting of the parent company on Oct. 19, the people said. Autostrade could be valued at 10 billion euros to 11 billion euros, excluding legal costs for the Genoa disaster, the people said.

Atlantia had agreed to cede control of the highway company to investors led by CDP in July, but instead there have been months of back-and-forth negotiations over finding an agreement on the value of the assets and legal questions, with lawmakers from Conte’s coalition periodically threatening to revoke the company’s concessions in the absence of a deal.

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