Wrong turn

摘要

Gianni Mion's holiday started with an unwelcome surprise. On August 4th, just when the managing director of Edizione Holding, the Benetton family's holding company and the biggest shareholder in Autostrade, a toll-road operator, was about to leave for his summer break, the Italian government rejected the planned ?14.3 billion ($18.3 billion) takeover of Autostrade by Abertis, a Spanish infrastructure business. The decision took Autostrade and Abertis by surprise: over the past weeks the firms felt confident that their plan to create the largest toll-road company in the world was on track.