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Statuto: filed bankruptcy for the Danieli Hotel
02 November, Il Sole 24 Ore
He’s the last of real estate agents of a group of entrepreneurs that about ten years ago shook the financial world with properties and investments, thanks to the easy credit of those days. Zunino, Coppola, and Ricucci are now dealing with legal issues and bankruptcies. Giuseppe Statuto, 50 years old from Aversa, has managed to stay afloat, he seemed to be the most cautious of the group. He has never been involved in expensive and risky real estate development projects, he rather aimed at solid investments. In fact, his activities have focused on the acquisition of luxury hotels. Little by little, he bought the Danieli hotel in Venice, the Four Season and the Mandarin in Milan, and the San Domenico in Taormina just to name the most significant ones. But he didn’t lose the vice, all those exclusive purchases have all been made on debt. Now all these debts are knocking at the entrepreneur’s door. He has recently filed bankruptcy at the Court of Rome (the hearing is scheduled on 16th January 2018) on behalf of Armonia, a vehicle of the Apollo Fund on the Danieli Property, the entity of Statuto that owns the hotel in Venice. Apollo has received most of the bad loans (especially coming from Mps) of the Danieli and now it claims the assessment for insolvency and the payment for the total exposure amounting 122 million. The bankruptcy request follows the foreclosure request of the Danieli coming from the financing banks (at the time, besides Mps, Aereal bank and Bper) over one year ago for a value of 161 million, after that the instalments were left unpaid since March 2015. It seemed like, after the foreclosure, an agreement with banks was found. According to the report from Apollo presented at the bankruptcy request, such an agreement has never been reached. Apollo highlights how the last financial statement from Danieli Property is dated back to 2014, and it was filed only at the beginning of 2017. Not only, in the last statement, there are losses for 3.4 million and losses carried forward for 28 million, besides a negative balance between short-term assets and short-term liabilities for 181 million, a sign for Apollo of the chronic debt condition of Danieli Property. As if this wasn’t enough, in the last statement emerges a bank debt for 176 million due in 2015. All signals for Apollo that Danieli Property was not and is still not substantially able to pay its outstanding debt. But Statuto doesn’t agree with that. He judges the decision of Apollo inappropriate and has declared in the past days to the local press: “We’re actually capable of paying. We’ll have to file a request to the Court of Venice to be able to repay all the debts with Apollo as we did with all the other banks that were our creditors”. In the 15th November hearing, according to Statuto, Danieli Property will pay 94 million to the Apollo Fund. It’s too early to tell how it’ll end up. It’s certainly not easy to figure out the intricate corporate structure headed by Giuseppe Statuto. The group controls, in fact, 64 sub-holdings, all of them with the minimum registered capital required by law and often featuring just one asset. A way to isolate the credits from the debts. The balance of this system is, however, more and more precarious due to the debts of the entrepreneur. It’s a fact now that in Italy is becoming increasingly difficult to get funding, too high the credit risk is. As he told to Il Corriere della Sera, Statuto was supported by a British fund, The Children’s Investment Fund, same London address as Algebris, the financial group of Davide Serra, with whom is affiliated. This fund issued to Statuto 59.5 million underwriting bonds at an 11.478% rate. That monstrous rate asked by the British is today the most trustful thermometer of the high risk Statuto is facing. And it signs high fever.
Source: Il Sole 24 Ore (by Fabio Pavesi)
Translator: Cristina Ambrosi