A long hot summer looks forward to Rcs, publisher of Corriere della Sera. With number one Urban Cairo put cornered from the parlor of Milanese finance. The decision of the president of Imi testifies to this, Gaetano Miccichè, to leave the board of directors of RCS a few hours after a delicate session in which the deal will be discussed Blackstone. And in which it will be necessary to evaluate if the company will have to do provisions compared to the compensation request of 600 million dollars for the non-sale of the building in via Solferino ad Allianz. According to insiders, the tug-of-war with the US fund is not (only) a question of money: one mediation it’s still possible. The point is the conditions, both economic and of management of the Via Solferino group. And the prospect doesn’t like Cairo at all.
As for Miccichè’s farewell, the point is that we are not talking about just any banker. He began his career in 1971 at the Cassa Centrale di Risparmio of the Sicilian Provinces to move to the Rodriquez shipyards in 1989 with the position of financial director. He joined Intesa in 2002 as the head of the business merchant banking later becoming general manager of Intesa San Paolo, member of the management board, head of the corporate and investment banking division, managing director of I (2007-2015). In short, it is one of the most important bankers of the country and is at the center of aimportant relationship system between finance and Italian and European industry. Officially Miccichè left the RCS board for new commitments. But in reality his farewell clearly shows the fracture matured between Cairo and Banca Intesa. Not a small issue because not only the institute headed by Carlo Messina he is the principal financier of the publisher and RCS, but has been the principal supporter of Cairo in 2016 when the Piedmontese publisher launched a public exchange offer on the publishing house of Corriere della Sera. At the time, Intesa spent a lot of money to complete the operation by supporting Cairo against the consortium led by the financier Andrea Bonomi, which was joined by other members of RCS: Diego Della Valle (7,62%), Mediobanca (9,9%), Pirelli e Unipol. Cairo therefore owes Intesa the success of the operation that led him to become the publisher of Corriere della Sera despite the resistors of part of the parlor of Milanese finance.
For its part, the publisher has “rewarded” the credit institution with a careful management of the publishing house which has allowed the company to pay off debts progressively and to get back financially in good standing by extensively exploiting the shock absorbers social networks available to publishers. For this reason, in Piazza Affari, Miccichè’s farewell is interpreted as the beginning of a phase of change for RCS and for Corriere della Sera. The group in via Solferino has always been around coveted prey in both France and Spain, where it has major newspapers such as The world. In the past, before the arrival of Cairo, when still there Fiat was in the capital of the group, the group had ended up in the crosshairs of the French publishing house Lagardère, today in the orbit of the Vivendi by Vincent Bolloré. And that is from the French financier who has just completed a truce with the Berlusconi family after attempting a hostile takeover on Mediaset.
Technically, RCS is not for sale because Cairo owns almost 60% of the group’s capital. However, the tug-of-war with Blackstone risks putting the publisher of Corriere della Sera in serious difficulty: the American fund has asked for $ 600 million in compensation for the failure to sell the building in via Solferino to Allianz for 280 million. After it clash in the arbitration chamber in Milan where they have prevailed Blackstone’s reasons, the game moved to New York where the fund focused on maxicausa compensation. The next appointment is scheduled for August 30, maximum term within which Cairo will have to present its briefs. Then the word will pass to the US judges. Unless you get to one first mediation with conditions to be defined both in economic terms and in terms of management of the Via Solferino group.
Meanwhile, according to French indiscretions, the whole affair is discussed a lot even in Paris where there is not only Bolloré at the window. There is also a close watch on the game John Elkann, editor of Republic and of Press, as well as a great sponsor of Pietro Scott Jovane, the former CEO who carried out the sale of the property in via Solferino in Blackstone, formerly a consultant to Fiat. And naturally Stephen Schwarzmann, old acquaintance of the Elkann family and above all president, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone, one of the largest investment funds in the world with 684 billion assets under management. More or less double the annual gross domestic product (368 billion) of a region like the Lombardy which represents 22% of the wealth achieved each year in our country. Large fortunes with a common denominator: everyone interested in controlling the Italian and foreign media.
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