Saipem: Eni collects EUR 393 million from the sale of 10 per cent

En collected EUR 393 million from the sale of 10% of Saipem announced yesterday and put on track with an accelerated bookbuilding process (accelerated order collection procedure) aimed at institutional investors. The placement took place at €1.970 per share, a 4.6% discount to the closing price of the stock.

As a result of the transaction, Eni holds 422,920,192 shares in Saipem, representing approximately 21.19% of the share capital, of which 249,504,583 shares (approximately 12.50% of the share capital) were contributed to the shareholders' agreement with Cdp Equity and are not subject to the sale concluded today. In fact, the sale concerned 18.69% of the package that Eni owned and was freely transferable.

As part of the deal, the group led by Claudio Descalzi committed to the joint bookrunners (Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Intesa Sanpaolo, Natixis and UniCredit) not to sell additional shares of Saipem on the market for a period of 180 days without their consent and unless an exemption is granted, as is expected in this type of transaction.

The sale therefore allows the group to lighten its stake in Saipem but does not change the company's governance structure since the share bound by the shareholders' agreement allows the two shareholders to retain joint control of the engineering company and, under the agreement originally signed in 2015 and renewed several times thereafter, to be able to express, through a joint list, the candidates for the role of chairman and CEO.

The shareholders' agreement, as is well known, was first signed in October 2015 on the occasion of the entry of the Fondo Strategico Italiano into Saipem's capital, which took over a 12.5 per cent stake from Eni and subscribed, together with the six-legged dog, to the 3.5 billion capital increase put in place at the time to strengthen the company.