Ita-Lufthansa, the wedding is postponed again. When Closing Is Expected

It will still take a few days for Lufthansa to formalize the payment of the 325 million euros necessary to purchase 41% of Itaú Airways as the first step towards controlling the company. The parties are still working on the final details to proceed with the closing, explain qualified sources. Last week, the German news agency Dpa mentioned January 13th as the likely date for the transaction, without the two companies officially confirming or denying it. The operation could therefore be postponed for a few days, some rumors now speak of Wednesday, January 15th, as the new date to be circled in red for the subscription of the German carrier’s capital increase.

The first step of the new shareholding structure will then be the general meeting of shareholders, with the appointment of a Board of Directors that will increase from 3 to 5 members, with Joerg Eberhart – former head of strategy at Lufthansa and CEO of Air Dolomiti – who would be in pole position to assume the role of CEO. Lufthansa estimates that in the coming years the stake in Ita Airways will increase the airline group’s profits by hundreds of millions of euros, as revealed by CEO Carsten Spohr interviewed today by Frankfurter Allgemeine. «Ita is the biggest acquisition in Lufthansa’s history. Without the prospect of a nine-figure profit contribution, we would not have taken this step,” explains Spohr. The CEO of Lufthansa specifies that the purchase of 100% of Itaú is “the goal”, but the increase in participation is not scheduled for 2025. “It is in our interest to keep the Italian government on board in the coming months”, said the manager. By 2027, the Group should become 90% of Itá and by 2033 to 100%, for a total value of 829 million euros.

The entry of Ita Airways into the Lufthansa group – which also owns Austrian, Swiss, Eurowings, Brussels Airlines and Discover – will strengthen the third global airline and offer a more solid future perspective for the Italian carrier. In 2024 Itaú stopped ‘burning’ money and at the end of the year it had around 500 million in cash. The payment will conclude a process that began in May 2023, when the first agreement was reached between Mef (owner of 100% of the shares in the company born from the ashes of the former Alitalia) and the German carrier. To reach Lufthansa’s purchase of Ita, a long consultation with the EU was also necessary, which last summer requested corrective measures to avoid violating competition rules. The definitive green light from Brussels – tempered with some final tension between the parties over confirmation of the agreed sales price – required a commitment from both companies to give up slots on medium and long-haul routes from Rome Fiumicino and Milan Linate airports. . In the first case, Air France and Iag (holding company of British, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus) will obtain slots on long-haul flights to the USA and Canada, while in the second, easyJet will benefit from spaces departing for destinations in Europe. For 2025, Lufthansa estimates that it will make 10,000 hires of pilots, flight attendants and other profiles, with a main focus on Germany.

Source: IL Tempo

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