Treccani, final hold on the acquisition of the Turin-based Lattes
Simone Silvi, ceo of Treccani Reti, arrives as president of the Piedmontese publishing house. However, there are still knots to unravel
The final stages in the negotiations for the acquisition of Lattes by Treccani. The deal has not yet come full circle - and indeed there is a sort of race against time to avoid any unexpected last-minute epilogues - but in the meantime Simone Silvi, the current CEO of Treccani Reti, the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana's commercial company, has taken over as chairman of the publishing house, founded in Turin in 1893, according to Sole 24 Ore.
Talks have been going on for about a year between the Piedmontese publishing house, which is strong in first grade schooling above all, and Treccani. These, however, are crucial days, with a deadline already set for 20 February by the Institute of the Italian Encyclopaedia and now postponed to this early part of March. It is expected in this timeframe that Lattes will provide some guarantees - on the coverage of the existing debt position in the publishing house first and foremost - the lack of which would so far have slowed down the operation designed to bring Treccani into the majority in the company.
At this point there would be alternative scenarios on the table. If the guarantees requested by Treccani do not arrive in the next few days, the only way to avoid derailing the operation would be to sell a minority stake in the Turin-based publishing house, which in 2024 (the latest available data) realised a value of production of EUR 7.6 million, to a third-party entrepreneur, whose name is still being kept confidential.
This would be the prevailing hypothesis at the moment according to rumours. In any case, the critical variable in this case is only that of the timing of the takeover (not to be delayed because the promotion period of the Turin-based publisher must be safeguarded).
The circle is therefore coming full circle, to arrive at the The End of an operation that, barring any last-minute surprises, should also lead to a review, in early April, of the board of directors of the 'new' Lattes, a company that Treccani has been looking to for about a year, as mentioned, in the logic of its desire to strengthen itself in scholastic publishing.
