Lufthansa said on Tuesday that it may also participate financially in a takeover of Alitalia successor ITA Airways with Swiss-based shipping group MSC. The German airline confirmed that it was in talks with MSC and that it was a potential partner in the shipping group’s possible acquisition of a majority state in ITA. “We will use the next 90 days to explore all possible options for cooperation, including a possible equity investment,” said the German airline. Swiss-based shipping group MSC said on Monday it and Lufthansa want to buy a majority stake in ITA Airways and have asked for an exclusivity period of 90 days to study the deal. <br/>
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ITA Chairman Alfredo Altavilla has welcomed an approach by Swiss-based shipping group MSC and German carrier Lufthansa to buy the majority of Alitalia successor ITA Airways, he told Germany’s Handelsblatt. “I am very pleased about this expression of interest,” Altavilla told the Handelsblatt daily. MSC said on Monday that it and Lufthansa want to buy a majority stake in ITA Airways and have asked for an exclusivity period of 90 days to study the deal. Lufthansa confirmed on Tuesday that it was in talks with MSC and that it was a potential partner in the shipping group’s possible acquisition of a majority state in ITA. Altavilla told the newspaper the industrial logic of the offer was “very convincing” and “extremely interesting”, noting that he sees synergies in the cargo business. “Cargo is now the sector where the highest margins are made,” he said, adding this could also help Milan Malpensa Airport, which has long played an important role in the Italian cargo business. He added that if the Italian government grants MSC and Lufthansa exclusive talks, 90 days is “a reasonable period of time to reach a result”.<br/>
The Italian billionaire who turned a one-boat cargo operation into the world’s biggest shipping company thinks he can save an airline operation that’s landed a profit just once in 75 years of flying. Gianluigi Aponte’s Mediterranean Shipping Co. is teaming up with Lufthansa to bid for ITA, the successor to Alitalia, a one-time symbol of Italian glamour that’s cost the Italian state billions of euros in unrecovered bailouts and failed takeover attempts. Armed with MSC profits earned amid sky-high shipping rates, MSC founder Aponte, 81, is betting his firm can turn a profit in an Italian aviation market that’s a key battleground for low-cost carriers like Ryanai and Wizz Air. “It’s a curious one,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, a shipping data and analytics company. “You’d expect them to make acquisitions in the field of air cargo, not air passengers.” MSC recently became the world’s largest container line after the coronavirus pandemic unleashed port disruption and unprecedented demand for consumer goods, pushing cargo rates to record highs. The Geneva-based company started out with one ship in 1970 and steadily bought vessels during the crisis, bringing its fleet to 638 boats, the largest in the world. By using the below-deck capacity of ITA passenger jets, MSC would also gain access to a higher-speed mode of transport and profit from long-haul routes from Europe to the US and Asia, said Alfredo Altavilla, executive chairman of the state-owned Italian carrier. “MSC could materially boost its business, making its cargo shipping interoperable worldwide through an owned airline like ITA,” Altavilla said. Acquiring ITA would also benefit MSC’s cruise-line business, enabling it to move its passengers to terminals, he said. Lufthansa, Europe’s largest airline by fleet size, would be MSC’s industrial partner in the proposed deal, but with a minority stake at most. The German airline flirted with Alitalia for years, but refused to invest until the loss-making company was restructured and bloated labor costs reduced.<br/>