Olidata, the return to Piazza Affari is by Ruffini. Today on the list after a seven-year block – Corriere.it

Relaunching made in Italy with a historic brand capable of becoming a catalyst for startups and new business realities, thus creating a player national reference in the world of ICT (Information and communications technologies). With this objective, Cristiano Ruffini (in the picture), founder of Sferanet, enters the capital of Olidata (assuming the position of chairman), contributes to completing the restructuring work already started by the former chairman Riccardo Tassi and obtains readmission to listing on the Stock Exchange. The green light arrived from Consob on Thursday 30 March following the filing of the prospectus. So this morning, Monday 3 April, after a seven-year hiatus, the shares of the company founded in Cesena in 1982 are once again being traded in Piazza Affari, restarting exactly from the last trading price of 24 March 2016 (0.154 euro), when Borsa Italiana had announced the suspension from negotiations for an indefinite period. A return to listing expected by 4,500 small shareholders (including employees), who risked losing everything.

The crisis years

Olidata’s problems began in 2009, when the company found itself having to deal with a situation of market illiquidity and a contraction in orders, which generated a financial-equity imbalance. Since then there have been several attempts to restore and restructure the debt, but these were not enough to save the company, which in the meantime had returned to being 100% Italian (in 2014, the majority shareholder Acer sold its share package, equal to 29.9% of the share capital, to Riccardo Tassi).

And in 2016 Olidata was put into liquidation, with a consequent halt to trading on the Stock Exchange. In the following years, Tassi went down every road to try to improve the fortunes of Olidata, injecting liquidity into the company on several occasions and obtaining admission to the composition with creditors procedure in 2021. The execution of the composition plan envisaged the maintenance of only the Olidata brand and the disposal of the total shareholding held in Italdata.

Change

The turning point comes in 2022, with the shareholders’ meeting which in August approves a reserved mixed capital increase (in kind and cash), up to a maximum amount of 10 million euros, to carry out an exchange operation with the Roman Sefranet.

With this operation, Ruffini, head of Sefranet itself, has become the reference shareholder of Olidata with 53.3% of the capital, bringing 51% of his company as a dowry. The deal was completed on 18 October 2022, with the subscription of the entire capital increase for a total of just over 9 million (0.1225 the subscription price of the shares). Ruffini subscribed 7.5 million, conferring the majority of Sefranet, while the other shareholder Le Fonti Group (with 8.8%) paid in 1.575 million. And today the return to listing on the Stock Exchange, with the company returning to Euronext Milan through the front door. Alongside Leonardo, it will be the second listed company with a univocal vocation on the world of ICT.

The project

With the start of the new industrial path, Olidata stands as Innovation partners for customers, with the aim of accompanying them in the digital transition process in which the country is engaged, offering technological consultancy and system integration services in the Big Data & Analytics, Cyber ​​Security, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Software Development and Ict Infrastructure sectors .

The relaunch project envisages an increase in the incidence of revenues linked to solutions with greater added value (such as Cyber, Big Data and Software), with the aim of increasing margins. Among the economic fundamentals, the company aims to exceed 60 million in revenues at the end of 2025, with an expected net economic result of 1.2 million in the same year and an increase in the gross operating margin to approximately 2.6 million, equal to 4 .1% of revenues. Furthermore, the group intends to continue evaluating integration opportunities through acquisitions of strategic companies and to enter into agreements with i global system integrators who already collaborate with Sferanet on strategic projects for the country.

The budgets

On March 20, the Olidata board of directors examined and approved the preliminary data for the 2022 financial year, which show revenues from sales and services of approximately 22.1 million, a negative Ebit (operating income) of 1.51 million and a net profit of 10.36 million. Net of proceeds from debt obligations, equal to 12.32 million, the net result would have been negative by 2 million.

Sefranet’s preliminary data, on the other hand, show revenues from sales and services of 49.92 million, a positive Ebit of 1.68 million and a net profit of 723 thousand euros, up 60% compared to the 451 thousand euros of 2021.

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