Webuild has launched a voluntary tender offer for all the ordinary shares of Trevi Finanziaria Industriale, approved by its board, worth 295 million euros in cash. It arrives as a counter to Icop, the Friuli company that moved first with a share exchange offer.
The difference between the two bids is not only the price but the currency. Webuild is offering cash, and its offer values Trevi 14.4 percent above the level implied by Icop's exchange ratio, measured on Icop's share price before that announcement. A cash bid removes the question of what the buyer's paper is worth, which is the question a share swap always leaves open.
The industrial logic is straightforward. Trevi specialises in special foundations and underground engineering, work that Webuild currently contracts out and that sits at the centre of large civil projects. Chief executive Pietro Salini framed the deal as an investment in skills, saying it brings a company of excellence into a global group with scale, financial strength and access to an order book of 54 billion euros, while preserving its skills, its people and its identity.
Trevi would keep its identity, its headquarters and its competences in Italy, and would gain direct access to the group's project pipeline. Whether that is enough to settle the contest depends on Trevi's shareholders, who now have a choice between certain cash and a stake in a combined company, which is the trade every contested bid eventually comes down to.