Sardinian airports: decision on a single management company for the three airports postponed until 2027

Everything has been postponed until 2027, if all goes well. We will have to wait at least six months for the establishment of the single company to manage Sardinia’s three airports: Cagliari Elmas, Alghero and Olbia. The delay has been caused by the regional government, which was due to allocate €30 million to acquire a stake in the new company.

The slowdown began with a proposal from the Regional Executive, led by President Alessandra Todde, who, through an amendment tabled to the supplementary budget, postponed the allocation of the funds required to acquire a stake in the holding company until 2027. This involves a financial contribution of 30 million euros, with which the Region is set to acquire a 9.25 per cent stake in the holding company that is to manage the three Sardinian airports.

The disbursement of funds is a ‘crucial step’ and follows the signing (last April) of the Term Sheet between the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, the Cagliari-Oristano Chamber of Commerce, the Fondazione di Sardegna and F2i SGR, acting as the management company for the F2i funds, relating to the development of the Sardinian airport system comprising Cagliari, Olbia and Alghero. The aim is to “outline a possible integrated corporate and industrial structure amongst the airport management companies Sogaer (Cagliari Elmas), Geasar (Olbia) and Sogeaal (Alghero)”.

A single management structure, therefore, for the three airports, which together handle around 10 million passengers a year. Not a ‘mere corporate reorganisation’, as had been emphasised, ‘but a means of providing Sardinia with a unified and coordinated airport system, capable of making the most of the different specialisations of the airports and their respective regions, and of more effectively supporting the island’s needs in terms of mobility, territorial continuity, tourism development and economic growth’.

The Term Sheet also identified certain key elements of the transaction relating to the ‘possible transfer by the Cagliari-Oristano Chamber of Commerce of its stake in Sogaer, the parent company of the airport system (“Aeroporti di Sardegna”)’. Furthermore, ‘the Region’s entry into the shareholding structure of “Aeroporti di Sardegna” and the establishment of a governance model providing for a significant role for public shareholders, to safeguard the region’s development, and an institutional industrial role for private shareholders, to ensure the effective implementation of the project and the associated synergies’.