Italy's Rai Way shares boosted by report of activist investor stake building

Rai Way SpA

30/01/2024 12:54

MILAN, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Shares in Italian broadcasting
tower company Rai Way  RWAY.MI  rallied on Tuesday after
Bloomberg reported that activist investor Clearway Capital had
built a minority stake to promote a mooted merger with rival EI
Towers.
    Shares in Milan-listed Rai Way, which is controlled by state
broadcaster RAI, rose as much as 5% after the report. The stock
was 3% higher at 1240 GMT.
    Clearway Capital declined to comment. Rai Way declined to
comment.
    Plans to merge Rai Way and EI Towers to create a national
broadcasting tower champion have been on investors' radar for
nearly a decade but failed to materialise so far.
    This month, state-owned Rai, which currently owns a 65%
stake in Rai Way announced plans to sell a stake of up to 15% in
the TV tower company, drawing criticism from a group of minority
investors in Rai Way, a letter sent to the state TV board and
seen by Reuters showed.
    The group of shareholders argued the stake disposal would
extract less value for Rai Way's investors than a combination
with EI Towers.
    Under a previous blueprint for the merger, Rai Way investors
would have received an extraordinary dividend worth around
310-400 million euros ($335-435 million), according to Kepler
analyst calculations.
    EI Towers is 60%-owned by Italian infrastructure fund F2i
with the remaining 40% held by Italy's top commercial
broadcaster MediaForEurope (MFE)  MFEB.MI  controlled by the
family of late media tycoon and political leader Silvio
Berlusconi.
($1 = 0.9222 euros)

 (Reporting by Elvira Pollina
Editing by Keith Weir)
 ((elvira.pollina@thomsonreuters.com;))