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Italian Premier Likely to Back Revoking Autostrade Licenses

Italian Premier Likely to Back Revoking Autostrade Licenses

(Bloomberg) -- Italy’s government may start talks as early as this week on stripping the country’s main toll-road operator Autostrade per l’Italia SpA of its licenses, with Premier Giuseppe Conte backing revocation, people familiar with the matter said.

The issue, which has divided the parties in the ruling coalition and its predecessor since the deadly collapse of a bridge in Genoa, could be discussed at a Friday cabinet meeting after the executive completed a review, said the people, who asked not to be named as the matter is private.

No final decision has been taken and the cabinet could still postpone discussions, they said.

Conte, a lawyer by profession, favors revoking contracts held by Autostrade, which is controlled by the billionaire Benetton family, two of the people said.

Shares in Atlantia fell as much as 3.9% in Milan, the most since Dec. 23, and traded down 3.6% at 12:54 p.m. local time.

Autostrade per l’Italia’s 750 million euros of bonds due June 2023 extended losses after the report on government talks. The notes dropped 3 cents on the euro to 92 cents, the lowest level since August 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Italian Premier Likely to Back Revoking Autostrade Licenses

A cancellation of the contract -- whether immediate or through a more protracted process -- “seems inevitable,” newspaper La Stampa quoted Conte as saying in a story published Wednesday.

Conte’s office declined to comment. Italy’s infrastructure ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. A spokesman for Atlantia wasn’t immediately available.

The government’s often acrimonious debate over the concession, which started after the bridge collapse on a stretch managed by Autostrade, a unit of Atlantia SpA, has highlighted divisions within the four-way coalition.

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement has vigorously campaigned for revocation. The center-left Democratic Party, the second-biggest force in the alliance, has yet to decide on the issue, one of the people said.

Matteo Renzi’s Italy Alive party, a junior coalition ally, opposes any precipitous move to strip Autostrade of its concessions.

--With assistance from Alessandro Speciale and Luca Casiraghi.

To contact the reporters on this story: John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net;Daniele Lepido in Milan at dlepido1@bloomberg.net;Tommaso Ebhardt in Milan at tebhardt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Jerrold Colten, Dan Liefgreen

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