Alitalia shares soared on Monday morning amid rumours that Italian entrepreneur Carlo De Benedetti's bid for the troubled airline was taking firmer shape.
Alitalia jumped 9% to 0.9945 euro cents on speculation that the De Benedetti-led buyout fund Management & Capitali would offer one euro per share for most of the government's controlling stake in the carrier.
The Italian government, which owns 49.9% of Alitalia, is planning to sell 39.9% of its stake and has set a deadline of April 16 for non-binding bids.
At the moment, five groups, including the Milan-based Management & Capitali, are interested.
Management & Capitali refused to comment on the Monday rumours.
"We don't want to comment on bourse speculation. We will say what we have to say by April 16, as required by the bidding rules," said the fund, which buys holdings in failing companies and works to make them profitable with investment partners, including Goldman Sachs Group and Cerberus Capital Management.
Alitalia shares have gained more than 20% over the past six months. An offer of one euro-a-share would value the carrier, which has not posted an operating profit since 1998, at almost 1.4 billion euros.
De Benedetti briefly headed Fiat and afterwards Olivetti, building up a large company with interests ranging from telecommunications to food and energy.
He is chairman of CIR, the industrial holding company of the De Benedetti Group.
The Italian government decided to privatise Alitalia at the end of last year and a preliminary tender reduced the initial list of potential bidders from 11 to 5.
These include Carlo Toto, the chairman of Italy's second-biggest airline Air One, which is already a partner with German carrier Lufthansa.
Unicredit, Italy's biggest bank, is also on the short list but it has made no secret that it has acted on behalf of an undisclosed bidder.
Some observers believe that Unicredit may be acting for Lufthansa or perhaps Air France-KLM, which already owns a 2% stake in Alitalia and is its partner in the Sky Team alliance.
Both the German and French-Dutch airlines have denied such reports.
All five potential bidders will be allowed to get a look at Alitalia's books before submitting their bids.
The group accumulated losses of 380 million euros last year, almost twice the amount it had predicted.
