L 141/84
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
20.5.2022
5.1.4.2.3.1.
Alitalia’s financial situation at the time of the initial loan
(218) The historical financial performance of Alitalia and its situation at the time of the start of the extraordinary administration and of the granting of the initial loan, is properly described, by its own shareholders, in the Turnaround Plan (described in Section 4.2.1.1) and by the financial report of 28 February 2017.
The Turnaround plan was prepared by Alitalia’s shareholders in December 2016 to illustrate their proposal for an internal restructuring of the company (see recitals 107 to 109) and it contains (in addition to the plan to turn Alitalia around between December 2016 and 2021) a detailed analysis of the financial performance of Alitalia in the period between 2009 and 2015.
(219) The Turnaround plan shows that during the period 2009-2012 under the shareholding of CAI (the consortium that bought the assets of the bankrupt Alitalia Linee Aeree Italiane in 2008), Alitalia reported cumulative losses for EUR 800 million.
Those losses triggered the adoption of a new three year (2013-2016) ‘Strategic Plan’ that had the objective of recovering profitability.
However, that plan did not prove successful and Alitalia recorded EUR 569 million of losses in 2013 and EUR 578 million of losses in 2014 (81).
(220) The Turnaround plan reports that in the period 2009-2014 Alitalia recorded almost EUR [more than 1 billion] of losses including a cumulated negative operating cash flow of almost EUR [less than 1 billion].
Over that period overall, Alitalia needed a capital injection of EUR 1,5 billion and a further subscription of debt for EUR 1,2 billion.
It is noteworthy that the Turnaround plan also indicates that in the period 2010-2013 the airline industry in aggregate was growing and recording positive profits (82).
Therefore, the Commission considers that those negative results for Alitalia appear to be specific to the company rather than being the results of negative macroeconomic developments.
(221) The Turnaround plan also indicates that it was that unsustainable situation that led to the search of a new industrial and financial partner to bring Alitalia back to long-term viability.
That partner was Etihad, which acquired 49 % of Alitalia in January 2015.
From January 2015 the new company Alitalia-SAI became functional.
(222) However, that attempt with Etihad to stabilize Alitalia failed.
In December 2016, the shareholders of AlitaliaSAI concluded that, after the entry of Etihad, between January 2015 and December 2016, the company reported a cumulative net loss of EUR [500-800] million for the two years (83).
That cumulated loss is equivalent to a EUR [250-500] million loss on an annual basis, a value in line with the annual reported losses in the period 2009-2014.
However, if the non-recurring items (mostly one-off revenue) is not considered, the loss amounts to EUR [more than 1 billion] (84).
Overall, such considerable amount of losses indicates also the failure of the Alitalia-SAI’s venture between 2015 and 2016.
Table 2
Selected figures of Alitalia Group […]
(223) The repeated failures of the past attempts to restructure Alitalia are also summarized in Figure 3.1.3.B of the Turnaround plan reproduced below as Graph 1.
(224) In Graph 1, the green lines with circle indicate the different strategic plans that were announced over the period 2009-2016 to restructure Alitalia.
All those plans had projected a steep growth in revenue.
However, the red line with square marks reports the actual revenues and shows how the strategic plans’ projections diverges markedly from the actual figures.
Moreover, the actual figures show that Alitalia’s revenue kept worsening over the period 2012-2016, with no sign of recovery.
(81) (82) (83) (84)
Turnaround Plan, pages 24-25.
Turnaround Plan, page 22.
Turnaround Plan page 31.
See Table 2 with key figures of Alitalia Group.
The EUR 1,2 billion loss is the sum of losses of EUR 468 million and EUR 697 million in 2015 and 2016, respectively, rounded up.