The Agnelli family will have control of the Espresso group

Exor, an investment company of the Agnelli family, will acquire control of Gedi, a publishing group that publishes some of the main Italian newspapers including the Republic and the Print. AGI he writes that Exor will buy 43.78 percent of Gedi da Cir, the holding company of the De Benedetti family. "The financial company of the Agnelli family will then launch a public purchase offer at € 0.46 per security through a new company; Cir, in turn, intends to reinvest you by buying 5% ».

The sale was decided after a long board of directors of Cir lasted all day, three days after Cir itself had confirmed the rumors that spoke of the passage of control of the so-called "Espresso group", one of the most important publishing groups in Italy (the question is explained here extensively).

The president of Cir, Rodolfo De Benedetti, issued a statement saying:

«After almost 30 years during which we were controlling shareholders of the Company, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all the women and men who have shared this long journey, which has always seen the group stand out for the quality of its journalism, for its ability to innovate and for the far-sightedness and effectiveness of management, which have enabled it to become the leading newspaper editor in Italy, the leader in digital information, one of the most important publishers in the radio sector and to deal with capacity of anticipation and incisiveness the long crisis in the sector. We pass the baton to a top-level shareholder, who has been involved in the life of the Company for more than two years, which knows publishing and its challenges, which it has already invested in recent years and that thanks to its international projection will know support the group in the digital transformation process in which it, like the entire sector, is immersed »

Before the agreement, the Gedi group had as its first shareholder the De Benedetti family through Cir, with 43.8 percent of the shares, followed by the Agnelli family, which held just under 6 percent. Other minor shareholders were Giacaranda Falck and Carlo Perrone.

The group is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange and exists – under the current form – from 2016, when the Espresso Group merged with Italiana Editrice, the company that controlled The print is Il Secolo XIX, at the time under the control of Exor. The two newspapers, with a strong presence in Piedmont, Liguria and Valle d'Aosta, were then merged into the Gedi group, which had other important publications as well as Republic, such as L'Espresso, and three radio stations available throughout the national territory: Radio Capital, Radio DeeJay is m2o.