Italy's Atlantia faces potential bid war as ACS eyes offer

Italian infrastructure group Atlantia is at the centre of a possible bidding war after Global Infrastructure Partners and Brookfield Infrastructure said they had met with its main shareholder and tabled a preliminary non-binding proposal for a possible takeover.

The two funds on Thursday said they had met with the Benetton family's Edizione on March 3 and 23 and tabled the proposal at the end of the month.

GIP and Brookfield said they had an exclusive agreement with Spanish construction company ACS under which it could acquire a majority stake in Atlantia’s toll road concessions if any offer was completed.

ACS is owned by Spanish tycoon Florentino Perez. The Benetton’s have increased their stake in Atlantia to 33%, making them key to any decision on the company’s future.

Italy’s famous Benetton family, investment fund Blackstone and other traditional investors, such as the Italian banking foundation CRT, were reportedly studying a counter strategy to buy Atlantia in its entirety to protect it from Perez.

Atlantia has just sold its controlling stake in Italian motorway subsidiary Autostrade per l’Italia and will receive €8bn before the end of June from a consortium led by Italy’s state-owned bank CDP.

“The Benettons are united to shield the group and could decide to delist it to protect the cash that must come from the Autostrade operation,” an unnamed source told Reuters.

In a statement after the market closed, ACS said it has an exclusive agreement with two investment funds, GIP and Brookfield, for the potential acquisition of a majority stake in the Italian infrastructure company’s highway concessions business.

Atlantia shares have soared over the last two days on news of Perez’s interest.