Spain’s ACS Said to Approach Atlantia on Road-Unit Interest

(Bloomberg) -- Spanish construction tycoon Florentino Perez, who heads ACS Actividades de Construccion y Servicios SA, has approached Atlantia SpA to show interest in the firm’s Italian highway unit, according to people familiar with the matter.

Perez, ACS’s chairman and top shareholder, wrote to Rome-based Atlantia to lay out the Spanish builder’s interest in buying the company’s Autostrade per l’Italia unit, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the matter isn’t public. In the letter, Perez valued 100% of Autostrade at up to 10 billion euros ($11.9 billion), the people said. The approach was reported earlier by the Financial Times.

Perez, who’s best known for his role as chairman of the Real Madrid soccer club, said earlier this week he was interested in creating a dominant highway operator and was open to a deal on Autostrade.

An investor group led by Italian state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti SpA has already made a revised offer for a controlling stake in the unit in an effort to seal a deal after months of acrimonious talks. The new bid doesn’t change the group’s 9.1 billion-euro valuation of Autostrade, but it lowers legal provisions linked to the sale, resulting in improved overall terms, according to people familiar with the matter.

Atlantia, whose biggest single investor is the billionaire Benetton family, and ACS have jointly controlled highway operator Abertis Infraestructuras SA since 2018, after the two firms competed to acquire it before ultimately forming a joint venture for the purchase.

Vinci Deal

The latest move by ACS comes after the Madrid-based company last week completed an agreement to sell its industrial engineering unit to France’s Vinci SA, in a 4.9 billion-euro deal that will be mostly in cash.

Shares in Atlantia rose as much as 4.6% in Milan on Thursday, and traded at 16.38 euros, up 3.6%, at 4:28 p.m. local time.

Atlantia, an infrastructure giant with holdings in motorways, airports and payment systems across the world, has been skirmishing with the Italian government over a sale of Autostrade ever since a deadly 2018 bridge collapse on a section of highway managed by the unit. The accident triggered national outrage and led to the eventual resignation and arrest of former Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Castellucci.

While Atlantia has already rejected four previous bids deemed inadequate by its board, the Benettons have been pushing for a deal with Cassa Depositi. Atlantia’s board was scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss the latest Cassa Depositi bid.

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