Italian airline Alitalia received less than two-thirds of the €300 million it was seeking in an emergency cash call, and said it expected to raise the rest from the state-owned postal service and other investors. The cash, part of a bigger rescue package engineered by the government, is seen as a stopgap measure giving Alitalia months to find a strategic investor.
Alitalia said it had received €173 million by the deadline for existing shareholders to subscribe to its rights issue, including guarantee payments made by Italy's two largest banks Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit.
Top shareholder Air France-KLM, with a 25 per cent stake, refused to take up its share of the cash call, saying Alitalia's new business plan pledging cost cuts was not enough to save the Italian carrier without its creditors writing off some of its huge debts. – (Reuters)