(Jamma) The Ministry of the Interior has given the go-ahead for the privatization of the Venice casino and the municipality has finally been able to publish the announcement. But there are those who doubt that there will be competitors because the conditions appear very onerous.
In practice, whoever aspires to manage the casino must keep it (almost) as it is, even if this jeopardizes profitability. And Venice finds itself on the one hand with an attempt at privatization set up in a way that the market will hardly be able to accept and on the other with a deficit that no one knows how to deal with. The auction base is of considerable size: 140 million for the first two-year assignment of
concession (thirty years) plus 33 million for subsequent years, plus 14 for the annual concession fee and plus 44,4 million for the shares of the company that manages the casino. A river of money that the possible suitors have unofficially let it be known that they have no intention of spending.
There's more: the municipality has signed an agreement with the trade unions which binds the buyers not to touch the organic materials for at least 7 years. This is not a trivial clause: a cinema employee earns
around 80 thousand euros gross per year plus tips of 15-20 thousand euros per year for 33 hours a week (in England the same professional figure earns 25-28 thousand pounds and 4-5 thousand pounds in tips).
