CDP alongside Veritas for water infrastructure

Summary

€20 million in financing for the public multi-utility providing water and environmental hygiene services to the Metropolitan City of Venice. The objective of the transaction is to improve the efficiency of the integrated water service.

Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and Veritas (acronym for Veneziana Energia Risorse Idriche Territorio Ambiente Servizi), a public multi-utility providing water and environmental hygiene services to the Metropolitan City of Venice, have signed a €20 million, ten-year financing agreement to support new investments in the integrated water service.

Specifically, the funds will be used for targeted measures to reduce water losses, upgrade the sewerage system, reduce service interruptions, strengthen the supply of Venice’s water network and improve the efficiency of the wastewater treatment process. Other goals of these initiatives include reducing electricity consumption, cutting carbon dioxide emissions and mitigating the risk of flooding on the mainland areas of the Municipality of Venice.

Veritas’s strategic plan includes investments for the construction of a new Venice aqueduct with increased capacity compared to the current network, and a new rainwater collection basin in Mestre, in the Bissuola quarter, which is essential to reduce the risk of flooding in the event of heavy rainfall.

Veritas is a joint-stock company wholly owned by public shareholders, an issuer of bonds listed on regulated markets, treated as equivalent to listed companies and among the top ten multi-utilities in Italy by size and revenue. As the parent company, with 2024 revenue of €536 million and 3,566 employees, the Group manages the waste cycle and urban hygiene, the integrated water service and other local public services across 44 municipalities in the Metropolitan City of Venice and seven municipalities in the province of Treviso, covering an area of 2,300 square kilometres and serving 940,000 residents, with more than 40 million tourists recorded each year.

“Our networks, starting with the Venice aqueduct, which dates back all the way to 1884, are often outdated and inadequate, particularly due to urban development that has not been matched by a corresponding upgrade of sewerage and drainage services. There is therefore a need”, said Marco Bordignon, Chairman of Veritas, “for substantial modernisation and development of the networks, which cannot be financed solely through service charges, which in our area are the lowest in Veneto and among the lowest in Italy. Every year we invest tens of millions of euros in maintaining the integrated water service networks, and this financing enables us to comply with the programmes of the Venice Lagoon Basin Authority”.

Alessia Masitto, Head of Infrastructure at Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, noted that “The financing provided to Veritas, which confirms CDP’s commitment to supporting the water sector in keeping with the 2025-2027 Strategic Plan, is aimed at improving the quality of the service offered by the operator through measures to boost the efficiency of the distribution network and wastewater treatment”.