Ettore Livini Before the applause of the Court of Auditors. Then the promotion of credit ratings by three cerberi as S & P, Moody's and Fitch. On the eve of the referendum on the privatization of Italian, Apulian Aqueduct - the largest water system in Europe has found four-authoritative testimonial "third" of its small miracle: the former 'assumificio and consumificio (of copyright' Ivo Monteforte, since 2007 at the helm of the company) has been restored.
Apulian Aqueduct, by car, eating government money and not invest skin has changed in four years. Becoming the proof that in Italy - and even more so in the South - you can handle the public water in an efficient and non-profit, bringing the blue gold to the taps of the citizens with more regularity and financial efficiency.
"The numbers speak for us - says Monteforte - In 2005 the company allocated to the Work on the 20 million a year, we are now about 200. Then they lost on the road 39% of the water gathered at source. Today we got off A135% recovering 40 million cubic meters of water and continue to improve. We brought home a good part of the services that were outsourced and downsized the workforce without sacrificing service. "
Moral: "In Vieste, Gargano, pearl first time this year the water came in August." And the EBITDA of the group has more than doubled since 2007. How did it come to this? "The base were two factors - Monteforte says - the strong political will to change and the decision to focus only on the social give water to Puglia. From there he began working on several fronts: "We started to remake the network of 150 municipalities with pipes in poor condition - said director general Massimiliano Bianco-350 thousand meters have been replaced, was fitted with a remote control system on all lines that allows us to monitor areas more prone to leakage. We halved the managers and staff reduced by 15% to 85% while entrusting the treatment was well. And now we're acting on the illegal connection. " The electronic control of the network has in fact allowed to discover more than 50 thousand anomalous positions in which you are intervening hours with the police in "Operation Archimedes.
say goodbye to old habits is never easy. "We take the utilities arrears - Monteforte says - Once the service was cut only by a decision of the managing director. And you can imagine the pressure. Today, after two unpaid bills the network control blocks the payment immediately. " Result: in 2007 the average delay of payment (the due date) was 180 days. Today I am down to 124, more or less in line with national data. "Not only - says the CEO - Having cut outsourcing has allowed us to reject proposals for unnecessary work.
In recent years, to give an idea, we were even asked to do where a water purifying was not even sure the water would come. " It remains the historical grievances of users for the costs of the bills but there is Monteforte. "It is absolutely true that we are among the most expensive in Italy. And by the way we must go to fetch water in Basilicata and Campania, and it's liquid crude that we have to be treated for drinking expensive than others are not really necessary. " Handling aside, the last two years were also useful to close the dark chapter of the Apulian Aqueduct derivatives contracts with Merrill Lynch with a transaction that has stashed in Italian government bonds, the liquidity of the company that previously had been parked in bonds (among others) di Chrysler e di General Motors rischiando di aprire una voragine nei conti del gruppo. E chiusa questa pendenza, la società ha potuto varare senza ulteriori incognite un ambizioso piano industriale al 2014 che prevede nuovi investimenti sulla manutenzione straordinaria. Cosa succederà al laboratorio di Monteforte in caso di privatizzazione del sistema idrico nazionale?
La regione Puglia, primo socio del gruppo, si è già mossa per evitare che l'azienda risanata esca dall'orbita pubblica, con un ddl (in itinere) destinato a trasformare la Spa in un ente di diritto pubblico, togliendolo in sostanza dal mercato. Il cammino di questo provvedimento non è però facile e lo stesso Acquedotto Pugliese has already moved on his own, inserting statutes in some poison pills designed to make trench against any private interests. These posts require the company's shares are not transferable, that profits should be used for new investment and provides for the creation of a fund to provide water services to families with serious financial problems. Hard to say if these barricades will be sufficient to cope with the tsunami arriving with the revolution of the Ronchi decree which obliges local authorities to open to private management of blue gold.
Apulian Aqueduct, with its 21,000 km of pipes, his 10 thousand km of sewers and a million active contracts is one of the most attractive morsels on the market today. Even more so now that the company has significantly improved its financial performance. It is no coincidence that the file AQP has long been well in evidence on the table of Acea, the Roman municipal plan to bet heavily on the sector as capital of which is the manufacturer with a major interest Capitoline Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone.
The leadership of the group, waiting for the storm water Italian, they can still make do with the compliments of Moody's, the rating agency usually very frugal in providing positive reviews. The report speaks for itself last November: "The stability di gestione assicurata dalla riconferma dei vertici aziendali — scrivono gli analisti anglosassoni—garantisce una tensione verso il miglioramento continuo dell'azione aziendale sotto il profilo operativo, della riduzione dei costi e del recupero dei crediti». Per un'azienda pubblica, nel settore acqua e al Sud, non è davvero poco.
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