Italian Treasury Plans To Sell All Oil Sector Holdings

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorUniversity, Master's April 2001

download word file, 1 pages 0.0

Downloaded 6 times

This update from our New York editors 20:40 GMT Oil & Gas News: Top Story Italian Treasury Plans to Sell All Oil Sector Holdings By Luca Di Leo ROME, Apr 19 (Dow Jones) - The Italian Treasury said Thursday that it plans to sell all its oil sector holdings in line with the liberalization of the sector in Europe.

Printer-friendly version E-mail to colleagues The Treasury didn't specify a timeline or give a list of all its oil sector holdings. The Treasury owns 35% of oil company Eni SpA (E).

Treasury minister Vincenzo Visco also reiterated that the Treasury is willing to hold less than a 50% stake in electricity company Enel (EN), but only after the sale of Enel's generating companies is completed. The Treasury now holds about 68% of Enel.

"The second tranche of Enel will be a robust one," he said.

Visco also said the sale of the first genco, Elettrogen, will take place by the end of May even though analysts have indicated that it might take longer.

Asked whether it would be possible to sell a second Enel tranche before the May 13 general elections, Visco said that it was unlikely.

"The placing of Enel is more complex because of the higher risks involved due to the genco sales and the placement of Wind-Infostrada," he said.

Enel recently completed the purchase of Infostrada, an Italian wireline telecom operator, from Vodafone (VOD) and plans to merge it with Wind, the telecom operator Enel already owns with France Telecom (FTE). Enel plans to list the new Wind entity by year end.

The Treasury also reiterated its plans to sell its remaining 3.95% stake in Telecom Italia SpA (TI) together with a recently acquired stake in TI yellow pages and Internet unit Seat Pagine Gialle SpA (I.SPG). Information...