Eni has signed a temporary intended exclusive with the investment fund Areswith the aim of selling 20% of the shares of Fullnessthe company controlled by the State Petrolery Company that deals with the sale and distribution of electricity and gas in the country.
If the sale were successful, the agreement should exceed 10 billion euros. This is the second entry into the capital of the fullitude of a subject other than Eni, after that of Energy Infrastructure Partners.
Eni wants to sell a part of fullitude
In recent weeks Francesco GatteiEni’s Chief Transition & Financial Officer had confirmed that the group had an ongoing negotiation for the sale of 15-20% fullness. Ares was not the only interested party. In the list there were also Stonepeak and Apollo Global, two other very important funds.
For temporary understanding of exclusivewe mean an agreement with which a company, in this case Eni, guarantees another company, in this case Ares, that the negotiations for the sale of a part of the actions of a group company will be carried out, for a certain period of time that Eni’s press release does not specify, without the involvement of other subjects, which are therefore excluded.
The sale of fullitude It is therefore not yet completedbut the fact that Eni has chosen Ares and excluding other possible pretenders suggests that between the two parties there is already a principle of agreement on which to build the definitive sale.
Eni’s “satellite” strategy
The sale of a part of fullitude to Ares is the result of the group’s new corporate structure. Eni is an oil company controlled by the Italian state. In recent years he has been trying, like other companies in the sector in Europe, to detach himself from the image linked to hydrocarbons to take on one that involves different sources of energy, including renewables. In this, however, the Eni brand, and its inheritance, risk being an obstacle.
For this reason, the Eni group is separating its various activities that do not have directly to do with the extraction, transformation and oil trade, from the main core of the company. This “satellite” strategy He gave birth to Pletnitude, a company that deals with distributing electricity and gas and which for this is not directly linked to the oil of oil.
Unlike Eni, therefore, fullness can focus more on practices in line with the decarbonisationwhile remaining controlled by an oil company. This makes it more attractive to investments such as Ares’s.
The future of fullitude: what changes for users
Even if the negotiation for the transfer of 20% full of Ares to be successful, Eni would remain firmly in control of the company of which they are customers approximately 8 million people in Italy and 2 others in other European countries. This means that, at least in the near future, the company’s strategy should not change radically.
Ares It does not seem to have an interest in controlling full -touches, but only to invest in society, which is evidently seen as interesting for the growth potential that it could have in the Italian market, recently almost completely liberalized, and in European ones.
