The company Autostrade dello Stato is founded: it will manage the state toll motorways

First step for the creation of the state-owned Autostrade Spa. It was moved by the Council of Ministers, which in addition to the Def gave the green light to the measure proposed by the deputy prime minister and minister of transport, Matteo Salvini. A green light that will provide the regulatory basis for the establishment of the company, wholly owned by the Mef and subject to the 'analogous control' of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. The newly designed structure will be entirely public capital and will have the task ofmanaging the motorway networks that belong to the state and are subject to tolls.

"The goal is to have a company that takes care of public toll motorways. There are currently four, the goal is to then have a public concessionaire. It is a startup controlled by the Mef that needs to be built," Salvini commented at the end of the council meeting at Palazzo Chigi, on the sidelines of the presentation of Fermerci's annual report. 'We are working more broadly on a new management concession for motorway concessions, there are very different tolls depending on the areas of the country. The objective is to arrive at containing the price of some very high tolls,' the minister explained. "Obviously the existing concessions are expiring, we are not intervening on what is there. On what will be we are reasoning with a view to having more investments for the benefit of users,' Salvini concluded.

The Italian motorway system after the privatisations of the 1990s, which led to the creation of Aspi and in the hands of the Benetton group the main Italian road transport network, have undergone a remarkable transformation and a substantial return under the aegis of the state after the drama of the Morandi bridge collapse in Genoa on 14 August 2018. In 2021, Atlantia's shareholders' meeting sold its subsidiary Aspi (Autostrade per l'Italia) to a consortium led by Cdp for a price of €9.1 billion, of which eight billion for the holding company owned 30 per cent by the Benettons and the rest to the German insurance giant Allianz. The following year, the 88.06% stake held by Atlantia was transferred to Holding Reti Autostradali (HRA). HRA is owned by CDP Equity (51%), Blackstone (24.5%) and funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management (24.5%).

Last October, however, a rumour had circulated, denied by Palazzo Chigi, of a bid by the Fininc holding company, owned by the Piedmontese Dogliani family, on Aspi. On that occasion Minister Salvini, while confirming that 'the government has no formal proposal on the table', considered it 'good news'. Fininc had taken over in 2021 the concessions of the A21 Turin-Piacenza and the A5 Turin-Quincinetto, lost by the Gavio family, which through Astm nonetheless manages most of Piedmont's motorway concessions and a vast network in Brazil and Great Britain totalling 6200 kilometres. It is precisely on Gavio that press rumours have insisted in recent months of an operation that would see the creation of a great champion of the sector. A scheme in which Cdp and the Piedmontese family would be joined by one or more financial entities, perhaps even Blackstone.