Single Bidder Enters Final Negotiations for Piaggio

Negotiations for the sale of Piaggio Aerospace are entering the final stage with the field of would-be buyers narrowed to a single bidder, the Italian airframer has confirmed. Those negotiations are expected to last about a month and result in an “irrevocable and binding offer.”

The company originally received 19 expressions of interest for the acquisition of the corporate assets of Piaggio Aero Industries and Piaggio Aviation, the two companies operating under the Piaggio Aerospace brand. That field narrowed to four earlier this year, and Vincenzo Nicastro, extraordinary commissioner for the company that entered into extraordinary receivership in late 2018, recently obtained approval from the Italian Ministry for Economic Development to negotiate with a single potential investor, it said.

Piaggio is not yet revealing the name of the bidder but called it the most suitable to take over the assets, according to criteria that include “quality of the industrial plan, long-term vision, jobs preservation, and value of the offer.”

Once an offer is produced, it must undergo a series of government reviews and approvals, including from the Ministry for Economic Development. Also, company unions would be involved at that stage, but Piaggio expressed the belief that it was “confident that no critical issue should come from their part.”

While noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed the process of the sale of the company, Piaggio said it has continued to build up its order book with a backlog for 14 new Avanti EVOs and a modernization program involving onboard systems of 19 P.180s operated by the Italian armed forces.