Ita-Lufthansa, “Stop the closure, it’s still on”. Extension to 12 May

The agreement for the acquisition of Ita Airways by the German airline Lufthansa has not yet been closed. The exclusivity period has expired today and there should have been a signing of the contract. But it still takes some time. The indication – coming from sources close to the dossier – is that the negotiations have been extended to May 12 and that ‘everything is going well’. A Lufthansa spokesman also confirmed to the German agency Dpa that negotiations with the Italian government are continuing. The talks are on track, but details would still be missing, they say from the German group.

Lufthansa presented an offer last January and aims to acquire, through a reserved capital increase, 40% of Ita for an outlay of between 250 and 300 million euros. The German giant then has the option to buy the remaining shares in the hands of the MEF, currently the sole shareholder, “subsequently” and thus acquire 100% of the newco. Last week, the president of Ita Antonino Turicchi said that “the process has begun” and “the operation in its structure is defined, then the fact that someone wants to change it by a comma is part of a negotiation”. When asked if he would close with Lufthansa by April 24, the president had replied with a joke: “It’s a party”, in reference to the April 25 bridge.

Previously, the CEO of the company, Fabio Lazzerini, had explained that in the negotiations the “focus is on the price”. Lufthansa has long declared that it has a strong interest in the Italian market and has often said that it considers itself “the right partner” that Ita Airways needs. The CEO of Lufthansa, Carsten Spohr, had already said this summer that “Italy is our most important market after our home market and the USA”. When at the end of August it seemed that Rome’s decision was for the entry of the Certares fund, Lufthansa had reiterated that it will still invest more in Italy, for example through Air Dolomiti. At the expiry of the exclusive deal for Certares and with the new Dpcm of last December, the surprising return to the negotiations of Lufthansa seemed definitive to everyone. Last February, Handelsblatt, the main German economic newspaper, underlined how “criticisms” of the deal with Lufthansa are increasingly rare in Italy and “the majority of Italians hope that Lufthansa will restructure and integrate the airline as it did with Swiss and Brussels”. For all of them, barring unforeseen events, now only the signature that concludes the agreement seems to be missing.