Giuliani: 'A hostile takeover bid on Azimut? We are ready for the barricades"

How has your growth impacted on the Italian economy?

In recent years we have focused on corporate and private market investments: in 2019 we had less than one billion in assets on the segment, today it is 6 billion but would be 9 billion if we added the billions represented by Azimut's pro-rata share in Kennedy Lewis Investment Management (sold to Goldman Sachs) and Pathlight.

Why did you sell the stake in the US asset manager?

Having too many SGRs can create more complexity than benefits. And we assessed that it was more profitable for our shareholders to sell. Consider that the sale of Kennedy Lewis was for a total all-cash consideration of USD 225 million while our initial investment in Azimut had been USD 60 million. For us, without taking into account the dividends received, there was a gain of around 205 million euro, which is equal to more than 6% of Azimut's current stock market value. A capital gain, however, which the market did not take into account.

You also recently announced an industrial operation to split Azimut in two with the creation of a fintech bank. With what timing? And with what advantages for Azimut shareholders?

With the operation that we announced at the end of March, i.e. the spin off of the financial advisor network in Italy and the creation of a new fintech bank that will be listed, we will create further value for Azimut thanks to the generation of net interest income, which to date is not included in the group's perimeter. The fintech bank project, which will be independent from Azimut, is moving forward: there has been the carve out of the network: approximately 1,000 financial advisors will join the new entity while 850 remain in Azimut. And we have a short list of platforms and small institutions for the banking licence. We expect to make a decision by September at the latest. We will use the capital deriving from this operation to grow, mainly in Italy, with a special focus on companies supporting them in their expansion, also abroad, or to return value to shareholders.

The fact remains that rumours of a takeover bid on Azimut continue to circulate on the stock market, partly due to your undervaluation. Is this a hypothesis you fear?

I will answer you very clearly. If it were true, it would be a 'robbery' for our shareholders since with the transaction announced at the end of March, the value of Azimut will grow significantly, which we estimate at between 30% and 50%.

No room for concerted aggregation?

No, any takeover bid would be hostile because Azimut's board of directors would be unlikely to accept an offer based on current value and we managers and financial advisors, as we have already stated in the past, would probably leave the company by emptying it and rebuilding a new one quickly. Among other things, there are also some poison pills both on participatory financial instruments and in the case of change of control: a number of companies, including foreign ones, having signed agreements with us on the basis of our independence, could dissolve the partnerships by buying back our stake at a price that is advantageous to them.

Do you fear more an offensive by Italian or foreign groups?

We work looking to the future and have no fears. All I'm saying is that if a takeover bid were to be launched by those who, for some time now, have been repeating judgments or target prices that are not in line with the real value of Azimut, Consob would probably intervene. I have already sent reports to the Authority in the past.

You have established a recent partnership with UniCredit. How is it going?

Since January we have started operationally distributing the products of Nova, our Irish management company. With UniCredit we have this initiative that will pay off in the long run.