A recent meeting between Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the CEO of Blackrock, Larry Fink, indicates a potential investment opportunity or the New York-based asset-management collosus. Blackrock already possesses shares of several Italian companies like UniCredit and Eni, and was allowed by the Italian government to own more than 3% of the shares of the Italian security company Leonardo.
Among the areas of interest is energy. In fact, before the encounter with Meloni, Blackrock discussed with Enel the potential acquisition of abandoned carbon plants to be transformed into data centers. Moreover, Backrock is interested in transportation infrastructure and other strategic sectors.
In the meeting with Meloni, Matteo Del Fante, CEO of the Italian post service, was also present, hinting to a potential privatization. Privatizations could also reach other sectors of the economy, as the Italian government has the intention of recovering at least 20 billion euros up to 2026 (1% of GDP) by selling shares of public companies.
These last talks are the continuation of Rome’s attempts to attract American investments. In fact, last year Meloni’s government backed the divestment by Telecom Italia (TIM) of its grid to KKR for 19 billion euros, finally arriving to the hands of KKR in July of this year.
Author: Luis Cabezas