Cassiopea Partners advises iCON Infrastructure in the acquisition of Colomion SpA, the company managing Bardonecchia Ski resort
Cassiopea Partners acted as sole financial advisor to Motta Holding (Italy) Srl, a company indirectly owned by the iCON Infrastructure Partners V (“iCON Infrastructure”) fund, in the signing of a binding agreement to acquire Colomion SpA (“Colomion” or the “Group”), a company that manages the Bardonecchia Ski resort, from its current shareholders LBM Italia S.A.S. and other minor shareholders.
Colomion SpA is the company that manages various activities in the Bardonecchia Ski area, a ski resort in the Piedmont Alps founded in 1938 and an established destination in the international ski market. Recently, Colomion has diversified and developed its activities in the area, now counting 23 lifts serving 100 km of slopes, a snow park, 8 restaurants on the slopes, the two-seater sled Alpine Coaster and a bike park operating in the summer months. With its services, the ski area registers about 500,000 visitors each year.
iCON Infrastructure LLP is an independent investment fund manager with approximately US$8 billion in assets under management, focused on mid-sized investments in infrastructure assets in Europe and North America. Fund investments managed by iCON cover a wide range of infrastructure sectors, including utilities, transportation, energy, social infrastructure, and telecommunications. Some of the investments supported by iCON Infrastructure LLP in Italy include Eco Eridania, Sestrieres, NVA and Alliance Medical Italy.
With the acquisition of Colomion SpA, iCON Infrastructure, which already owns Sestrieres SpA since 2021, has shown its commitment in the strong potential of the Piedmont region, creating a district aggregation of great national and international strategic importance that wants to present itself with increasing prestige to the mountain tourism markets.
Sestrieres SpA is the company that manages Vialattea, one of the largest ski areas in the European Alps. The company runs 47 ski lifts, located among 7 Italian resorts, Sestriere, Sauze d’Oulx, Pragelato, Oulx, Cesana, Sansicario and Claviere, connected, ski to ski, to the French resort of Montgenèvre. The ski area hosts more than 1.2 million skiers per season.
The two companies will operate autonomously and independently, led by two separate boards of directors and their respective managements, and always in accordance with the territories to which they belong. Just over 10 km apart, the two ski areas will be able to offer an all-inclusive tourism offer with features suited to meet the needs of customers, while continuing to develop and renew the ski infrastructure and maintain high health and safety standards for all visitors and employees of the ski area.
Ivana Semeraro, Partner at iCON Infrastructure and advisor to Sestrieres SpA and Colomion SpA, said, “With this transaction, we are strengthening Piedmont’s tourism offer in an increasingly international dimension, creating a ski aggregation capable of offering an all-inclusive tourism offer to satisfy our customers. We aim to further develop both the ski areas of Vialattea and Bardonecchia Ski with a long-term development plan to benefit our customers, businesses and local communities and institutions as a whole.”
Cassiopea Partners foster its expertise in infrastructure investments, once again demonstrating its ability to identify and activate assets that are aligned with its clients’ investment strategies.
The completion of the transaction remains subject to the satisfaction of pre-closing conditions.