Alitalia capital increase approved by board
(ANSA) – Rome, October 11 – Alitalia’s board on Friday approved a capital increase, which has been reported to total 300 million euros in the press recent days, to stave off the prospect of the airline going bankrupt.
We have approved the increased (of capital), according to plans”, said board member Maurizio Traglioafter after a board meeting.
Traglio went on to specify that everyone present at the meeting approved the measure, including the biggest shareholder Air France-KLM.
Poste Italiane Chief Executive Massimo Sarni, whose state-controlled postal company is participating in the capital increase with a 75-million-euro contribution in exchange for a reported stake of as much as 15% in the troubled airline, has already started to work on a new business plan for Alitalia, ANSA sources said.
Sarmi “already has a few ideas in mind” and there “is a team that has started working on the matter from the day before yesterday” in a bid to “give innovation and a new spin to the industrial plan”, the sources said.
Sarmi earlier on Friday said that the funds that would be injected into Alitalia would originate from the postal service company’s own liquidity and not from postal accounts or other such sources of client savings.
Reports of the possible salvage plan involving Poste Italiane were met with concern relating to it being state aid, given the company’s public ownership, a measure which is banned by European Union regulations.
Paolo Scaroni, the head of energy company Eni which is owed around 30 million euros by Alitalia and had threatened to cut off supplies, told ANSA he was happy at a board decision that made it possible for the airline to “go back to being an important airline”.