A2A, the real fusion begins now – Il Sole 24 Ore

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This article was published June 14, 2015 at 8:14.

The companies have a soul? Yes. Companies that work have souls solid and cohesive. They do not have two, chipped and disunited. In the case of the merger between the block A2A from Milan and Brescia that – from a strategic-industrial and the equally sensitive dimension of civic affiliations – did not work out. Now, nell’algida logic of numbers and in the delicate sphere of communitarian sentiments something – very – is changing. A2A, from enterprise formed by the sum and by the juxtaposition of two realities – AEM and AMSA more Asm – is becoming a single, unitary body. Economic, technological and financial. But, even before that, and political and cultural identity. A mutation – or, better, a completion – of his genetic heritage, able to lead the company to become the aggregator of utility Lombard. Let’s start with order. “The new course of A2A? Sure they feel substantial innovations. The interview, now exists. And it is constant. There is a real concern to the needs of entrepreneurs and families from Brescia, “says Marco Bonometti, president of AIB, the Industrial Association of Brescia. The husky voice of Bonometti man factory, describes the feelings of mending that the current leadership of A2A, formed by President John Valotti and by CEO Luca Valerio Camerano, is causing a Brescia that – spiritually bereft of Renzo Capra , the engineer who had made the old Asm a gem – has long suffered the physiognomy assumed by A2A. The thought of a man of firm Bonometti reminiscent of a financial analyst as Javier Suarez of Mediobanca, that “the problem of the historical main A2A was the lack of real integration between Milan and Brescia, for example manifested in the absence of a CEO. Now, the mandate of the two main partners, the cities of Milan and Brescia, is to proceed with the construction of a single reality. And things are going in this direction. The management has a clear view, consistent with the strategic directions of the shareholders. ” Everything, therefore, in a virtuous cycle between shareholders and management. “Exceeding the dual and the end of a logic divider – the mayor of Brescia Emilio Del Bono, a Catholic liberal of the Democratic Party of ancient ancestry martinazzoliana – have yielded consistent industrial and strategic perspective to the company. It was essential that the common purpose, now, we have developed with the Mayor Giuliano Pisapia. ” The mechanism was the understanding that only a greater industrial efficiency – leaving aside any particulare – would produce more useful and a greater appreciation of the title, with a consequent increase in the dividend potential, essential in the financial situation of the municipal coffers (today this remuneration weighs for one-tenth the budget of the current part of the City of Brescia). Between 2009 and 2014, according to the reclassification of financial statements made by R & amp; S Mediobanca, dividends distributed to Brescia and Milan were equal, for each municipality, at 285,2 million euro. Says Maurizio Baruffi, chief of staff to Mayor Pisapia, who represented the city of Milan to the last meeting of A2A: “This is an evolution agreed by public shareholders an investment that, for Brescia, has a particular emotional density, given that this is the company par excellence of the city, while Milan A2A is one of the companies of the city. Beyond this different psychological aspect, for both municipalities this company remains an essential source of income. And, also, a lever to participate in the economic development of an essential part of the country, such as Lombardy and the North. ” The industrial transformation – ex pluribus unum – is happening reshaping the organization. There are, as before, two general managers, in some way related to Brescia and Milan. There is a CEO who led the new business model. They are, in fact, been established five business units: generation, environment, networks, market and international expansion.

In the expansive thrust – a plan of development and not of downsizing – the basis of corporate finance is used to support an investment plan that, in the next five years should include interventions to just under 2.1 billion euro ( + 40%). Somehow, therefore, has a figure organizational, a value financial and industrial nature the new course of A2A, which can count on a techno-productive complex historical: it is true that, according to the financial statements reclassified from R & amp; S Mediobanca, material investments fell from 293 million euro in 2009 to 247 million in 2010, rising from 183 million in 2011 to 275 million in 2012, riassestandosi from 227 million in 2013 to 237 million in 2014. But it is equally true that investment materials as a percentage of the initial gross tangible fell from 5.8% in 2009 to 3.8% in 2010 and 2.4% in 2011, returning in 2012 to 3.1% and then falling again in 2013-2, and 3% in 2014 to 2.4 per cent. Thus, the strategic perspective is at the crossroads between the resources with which to make investments, the identity techno-manufacturing industry consists of specializations in the generation and district heating, and a non-hegemonic expansion of its perimeter. Under the latter, rather than the classic model of take-over of small and medium-sized utility to whose economic rationale does not match an adequate civic and political sensitivity, the new A2A has chosen a multi-brand strategy and indicated that the conservation of trademarks and of margins of autonomy. One hypothesis would be an agreement with LGH, the utility owned by the municipalities of Rovato and Franciacorta, Pavia and Lodi, Crema and Cremona. Some confidential talks would be in the course of all the counterparties involved. Within a couple of weeks you could get to a first result of feasibility – as yet to be defined and abstract – or not the start of a path towards the effective establishment of a large utility Lombard. Beyond the results of the talks – and technical formulas conceivable for a hypothetical aggregation card or cash – a theme of consolidation and growth in size in Lombardy it arises. “The problem of preservation of the flow of dividends – concludes David Tabarelli, president of Nomisma Energia – is vital for these municipalities as much as those in capital and building economies of scale waste and generation. Fragmentation does not make sense. And the passing of soft parochialism, through politics of multiplicity of brands, seems to have an aspect of economic efficiency and strategic cunning. ” We’ll see if, in a country as complicated as Italy, in the end it will work.

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