Alitalia eyes merger with Air France

Alitalia has held high-level talks on a possible merger with Air France-KLM, which already holds a 25 percent stake in the Italian airline, the Il Messaggero daily said Saturday. "Alitalia's mission to Paris for a wedding with Air France," read the headline on a report which claimed Alitalia managers had a meeting in Paris on Friday with Air France chief executive Jean-Cyril Spinetta. Also present was Gaetano Micciche, head of corporate and investment banking at banking group Intesa Sanpaolo, which helped put together a deal in 2008 to rescue Alitalia from imminent bankruptcy, the newspaper said. But a spokeswoman for Intesa Sanpaolo said Micciche "did not take part in any meeting yesterday or in the preceding days with the chairman or chief executive of Alitalia or the chairman of Air France." The report comes ahead of an Alitalia board meeting scheduled for Tuesday. The airline has been suffering from the downturn in the Italian economy and the effects of the debt crisis, and Il Messaggero said it was expected to post net losses of between 60 million and 70 million euros ($78 million and $91 million) for 2011. Il Messaggero said Italian shareholders were getting impatient and intended to bring forward the end of a lock-up period that effectively prevented the transfer of shares to Air France-KLM until October 2013. The deal struck to privatise and rescue Alitalia was hammered out under former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to stop an Air France-KLM takeover and preserve the "Italianness" of the company.