Riccardo Toto, the early days CEO of Air Italy and now the leader of multi-activities who proposed himself to reportedly join the consortium that will save Alitalia, is now setting conditions to that offer.
With a letter addressed to Il Messaggero daily published today by the Roman newspaper, for the first time, the group based in the Abruzzi region came out into the open and put on paper what has been said in many parts in recent weeks.
“We are serious,” states top management in the letter, and we have all the “credentials” to join Alitalia, and in particular “reliability, entrepreneurial experience, and adequate financial resources to deal with equally valid partners with professionalism, competence, and seriousness.”
In the letter, written by the Managing Director, Lino Bergonzi, who is the son of founder Riccardo Toto, the company also denies “some strange legends” around the group, such as those concerning “the results of his past experience in air transport, the alleged debts with Anas” and the story on “New Livingston Airlines.”
Toto underlines how, in the past, it was “with AirOne, the first company to compete with the national airline” that today it is “a healthy group with over 500 million euros in revenues and 1,300 employees, active in renewable energy with profit in Italy and especially in the United States, in public works, motorway concessions, and plant maintenance.
“With the formalization of Toto’s descent into the field, in theory at this point, all that remains is to wait for the July 15 deadline set by Minister Luigi Di Maio to receive from the FS (the State Railways System) the rescue plan of the Alitalia newco. Only in theory, though.
Given that the same AD of the FS, Gianfranco Battisti, did not do so a few days ago, he had not been so categorical in indicating the middle of the current month as the deadline by which to close negotiations with potential partners.
At this point of time, in addition to Toto and the Lazio region patron, Claudio Lotito, who presented an expression of interest, in the last hours, the Colombian tycoon German Efromovich, the majority shareholder of the Colombian flag carrier Avianca, also came forward as published in the Bloomberg columns.
“We wrote a letter to the Ferrovie Dello Stato and to the advisor Mediobanca two weeks ago saying that we are available to buy up to 30% of Nuova Alitalia. But we want to participate in the restructuring management team,” said Efromovich.
“I should be the CEO, at least at the beginning,” he said. “I’m not looking for a way to spend 200 million dollars. Alitalia is an excellent company, and I don’t understand how it can lose money,” stressing that “in six months it can be set back into profitability.”
The State Railways has been leading the main operation from the beginning with the role of director, and they must complete the consortium whose total contribution covers 60% of the capital required – on paper: FS 30-35%, Delta and the Italian Treasury 15% each.
Also not resolved is that Atlantia has never taken any formal steps to enter the group. Meanwhile, a new meeting is planned at the Mise premises to discuss the future of Alitalia, which will have Deputy PM Di Maio and the unions in attendance.
