The difficult order of Florentino Pérez for Atlantia to put the new era of ACS on track

• Mercado ACS studies an offer for Atlantia in an operation of more than 15,000 million euros

• Empresas Florentino Pérez loosens ballast and lays the foundations for a strategic shift in ACS

On April 6,

breathed a sigh of relief when the referee signaled the end of the match between Chelsea and Real Madrid at Stamford Bridge.

The whites had achieved a score of 1-3 in the first leg of the quarterfinals of the Champions League and the result gave some calm to their president, who that same afternoon had had to face the headlines that revealed his intentions to launch an offer to buy the motorway business of the Italian

.

Few options are more symbolic than taking over the roads of an international giant to put the new stage of ACS on track.

However, it will not be an easy road.

To try to take control of Atlantia (which is already a partner of the Spanish company in Abertis), Pérez has allied himself with two of the world's largest infrastructure investment funds, the New York-based

(Global Infrastructure Partners) and the Canadian

but facing It has the almighty

family , which owns 33.1% of the Italian and wants to stop the Madrid president's ordeal.

As a result of this intention, the Italian company, in alliance with the American fund

, has presented this Thursday a takeover bid for 100% of Atlantia at a rate of 23 euros per title, which raises the operation to around 12,700 million euros.

That price would value the infrastructure company at more than 20,000 million and would represent a

over the average price of Atlantia shares in the last six months, as explained by both partners through a statement.

What does Florentine want?

ACS's interest in Atlantia actually reflects the construction company's project to take a strategic turn in its course.

It is not a new or recent project, but now it faces its decisive final stretch after several years of investments and divestments that are completed with a profound restructuring of the management leadership.

Said restructuring will experience a key date on May 6 with the appointment of Juan Santamaría as CEO of the group.

The position had been empty since the resignation of

in September and the arrival of Santamaría will be the definitive push for the group's simplification process.

"It is true that its current structure is complex, with cross-shareholdings between subsidiaries and various business areas in which some have great weight, such as Hochtief (42%), Abertis (21%) or Construction (14%), and others less, although in return they generate a lot of recurrence in income -such as Concessions (9%)- or they may have a great projection in these times -such as Renewables (8%)-", explains Antonio Castelo, Analyst at iBroker.es.

At the business level, the spotlights point to infrastructure,

The Atlantia operation would be part of ACS's interest in investing in concession assets and, above all, in its aspiration to be one of the largest highway managers in the world.

highway concessions in 11 countries and totals 9,300 kilometers under management.

Its main brand in this sector is Abertis, in which it controls 50% plus one share, compared to 30% of ACS and 20% minus one share in the hands of

.

In addition, the company operates

Fiumicino and Ciampino (Rome), and Nice, Cannes and Saint Tropez, in France.

doubts and obstacles

With regard to the possible purchase of Atlantia by ACS, the horizon is raised with more questions than facilities.

"The first question is that of the structure of the operation in terms of the distribution of packages between ACS and the funds and its financing. In this sense, it should be remembered that ACS has just received the payment of 5,000 million euros for the sale of Industrial Services to the French Vinci, although this figure would still be far from the 15,700 million that Atlantia capitalizes", points out

in his analysis for

.

"Secondly, it would be necessary to analyze the role that the Italian Government could play, which in its day was already opposed to the sale of

to an international investor; and thirdly, it would remain to be seen if the operation would be carried out with the approval of the main shareholder (the Benetton family) or if it would be a hostile operation," he adds.

In the expert consensus,

.

This is how Antonio Castelo also sums it up: "We think that

to undertake the operation alone, at least under conditions that do not generate great tension, so it should have the support of at least one other of the reference shareholders. If there is no prior agreement it will be difficult to propose the operation and a hostile takeover bid would not benefit anyone," he says.

In his opinion, "an alternative would be for the reference shareholders to agree to split up Atlantia and each keep the part that most interests them", but it does not seem that the plans of the main shareholder go in that direction, according to the bid launched this Thursday.

The markets remain attentive to the evolution of a scenario in which the takeover war flies over the future of the Italian giant.

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