Venice airport link to Nuance sale

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By Trevor Lloyd-Jones

A powerful group of Italian investors is joining forces for the second phase of The Nuance Group acquisition and regional airport investments by way of a complex network of cross shareholdings. TRW can reveal that SanPaolo IMI Bank, a minority shareholder in Venice airport company SAVE (Societa Aeroporto di Venezia Marco Polo) has links to other financial players behind the recent Nuance acquisition and other related airport investments.

Closer analysis of the alliances of this industrial grouping of the Veneto region also links Gruppo PAM, Stefanel and SAVE, another protagonist in the Nuance deal. Venice airport itself has commercial revenues of under $2m and recently launched its own retail concepts under the Elite banner (TRW 13/02/02).

Gruppo PAM and fashion conglomerate Stefanel, which holds a call option on a 50% stake in Nuance, are both shareholders in Agora the investment vehicle which controls Nordest Avio, one of the other private shareholders in Venice airport.

According to sources close to the Nuance deal, SAVE and its financial backers were the vehicle originally used to express interest on behalf of Gruppo PAM.

Meanwhile Edizione Holding, the unlisted Milan company through which the Benetton family controls the giant Benetton Group, said it is aiming to buy stakes in Italian small to midsize airports. Edizione Holding joined forces with SanPaolo IMI Bank this month to bid for Florence airport. Edizione Holding is the majority stakeholder in travel-retail group Autogrill.

• Analysis and reaction to the Nuance sale will appear in the May 1 issue of Duty-Free News International.