Edison Stake to Be Put Up for Sale, CEO Quadrino Says

By Adam L. Freeman and Mahmoud Kassem

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Edison SpA Chief Executive Officer Umberto Quadrino said a stake in Italy’s second-largest electricity producer may be put up for sale soon.

“There is a 10 percent stake that could be for sale in the near future,” Quadrino told reporters in Cairo today, without identifying the potential buyer. Edison rose to a one-month high in Milan trading following his comments.

A2A SpA and Electricite de France SA, Edison’s majority shareholders, are in talks on buying a 10 percent interest in the Milan-based company from Carlo Tassara SpA, Quotidiano Energia reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information.

Tassara, financier Romain Zaleski’s holding company, said in December it signed an agreement with a group of Italian creditors including Intesa Sanpaolo SpA to “stabilize and reduce” its debt within a year.

Tassara, which owns stakes in some of Italy’s biggest companies, including Intesa and insurer Assicurazioni Generali SpA, needs to reorganize its debt after the global financial crisis eroded the value of its holdings. Italy’s Il Messaggero reported Nov. 16 that Tassara owed 5.5 billion euros ($7.2 billion) to lenders.

A2A Chairman Giuliano Zuccoli said today that his company and EDF aren’t in talks to buy the Tassara stake, adding that they would consider anything it puts up for sale, Italian news agency Ansa reported. Zuccoli is also chairman of Edison.

Francois Molho, a spokesman for EDF in Paris, declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg News.

Edison shares rose as much as 4 percent to 98.5 euro cents, the highest intraday price since Dec. 8. The stock was at 97.8 cents as of 2:57 p.m. local time, giving the company a market value of 5.19 billion euros.

Italy’s largest power producer is Enel SpA.

To contact the reporters on this story: Adam L. Freeman in Rome at afreeman5@bloomberg.net; Mahmoud Kassem in Cairo at mkassem1@bloomberg.net.