Reuters – Fondo Strategico Makes Offer for Finmeccanica Unit

Italian state-controlled fund Fondo Strategico Italiano has made a binding offer for a minority stake in Finmeccanica‘s power engineering unit AnsaldoEnergia, sources close to the matter said on Tuesday. AnsaldoEnergia, of which the Italian aerospace and defense group owns 55%, has attracted interest from German industrial giant Siemens as well as from Korean group Doosan and a group of Italian investors headed by FSI.

(Reuters) – Italian state-controlled fund Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI) has made a binding offer for a minority stake in Finmeccanica’s power engineering unit AnsaldoEnergia, sources close to the matter said on Tuesday.

AnsaldoEnergia, of which the Italian aerospace and defence group owns 55 percent, has attracted interest from German industrial giant Siemens as well as from Korean group Doosan and a group of Italian investors headed by FSI.

“The binding offer was presented yesterday as expected,” one of the sources said.

“Finmeccanica has received the offer,” another source said.

Finmeccanica declined to comment.

In October, FSI signed a memorandum of understanding with Gruppo Energia Brescia, Gruppo Acciaierie Venete and entrepreneur Davide Usberti, who controls gas company GasPlus , to make an offer for AnsaldoEnergia.

Mid-sized lender Banca Carige and the banking foundation that controls it are also part of the bidding group formed by FSI, the sources said on Tuesday.

The offer of FSI and Italian fellow-investors will be based on an enterprise value for AnsaldoEnergia of 1.25 billion euros ($1.65 billion), daily Corriere della Sera reported on Saturday.

The remaining 45 percent stake of AnsaldoEnergia in the hands of U.S. investment fund First Reserve.($1 = 0.7598 euros) (Reporting by Luca Trogni, Danilo Masoni, Andrea Mandala; Editing by Jennifer Clark)