MILAN, April 28, 2020 – Genoa’s new bridge has made its mark on the port city’s skyline: 10 months of work thanks to the commitment of more than 1,000 people from Salini Impregilo and Fincantieri, partners in the PerGenova joint-venture, has led to the completion of the bridge’s structure in safety and record time with the upmost attention to quality. The last span of the bridge’s deck was installed today in the presence of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte; Infrastructure and Transport Minister Paola De Micheli; Genoa Mayor and Extraordinary Commissioner Marco Bucci; Liguria Governor Giovanni Toti; Salini Impregilo Chief Executive Pietro Salini; Fincantieri Chief Executive Giuseppe Bono; and all the managers, technicians and workers who made the project’s development possible.

During the event, the relaunch of Italy’s infrastructure sector was mentioned several times, marked by the model applied to the new Genoa bridge. It is a relaunch to which Salini Impregilo wants to contribute with Progetto Italia, an operation to consolidate companies in the country into a larger group, to be called Webuild. It is a historic operation involving the national system, born out of a vision held by Salini Impregilo along with the main institutional and financial players in Italy who believe in the value of a project that can revive the sector in Italy and bring work to small- and medium-sized businesses that make up the supply chain. It is an operation with the support of Salini Costruttori, Gruppo Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit and Banco BPM, as well as institutional investors such as Delfin, the financial holding of Leonardo Del Vecchio, Elliott Management, Eurizon Capital, Mediolanum Gestione Fondi, Kairos, Azimut and other prestigious investment funds from the United Kingdom and the United States.

“Today, we celebrate an important day,” said Salini. “I remember August 14, 2018, when we all looked in shock and with a feeling of powerless at site of the smoke that rose from the wreckage of the bridge with 43 victims: an unimaginable and unacceptable tragedy for a country with our knowledge and our ability to build infrastructure still today with our hands. Now that we are in this pandemic that has denied us the pleasure of embracing each other, I would like to shake in a virtual way all the hands of the men and women who were able to build this bridge, because you are the extraordinary people who have closed a deep wound held by this city. As Italians, we have a rich history in infrastructure. There are public works built by the ancient Romans 2,000 years ago that still exist and function. But today, public works are not eternal, they have a limited lifespan and are in need of maintenance. From this city a message of hope and future goes out, a great plan for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure in our country that would create millions of jobs. Let’s begin immediately with a new Marshall plan, using the success of this bridge as a model for the relaunch of Italy.”

Today in Genoa, the last span, 44 metres in length and weighing 900 tonnes, was raised between Piers 11 and 12, bringing to an end the work on the structure with the use of an innovative fast-track approach. The span was raised at five metres per hour by strand jacks installed atop the piers, completing the deck’s total length of 1,067 metres. Work on the first foundation began on June 24, 2019.

Salini Impregilo put to work on the bridge some of its best technicians with experience earned on some of the most iconic infrastructure projects in Italy and the world. In recent weeks, the Group has entered the final stages of the construction of another bridge: the replacement of the Gerald Desmond that connects Long Beach to Los Angeles and has distinguished itself from the beginning for its technical and organisational solutions typical of a strategic infrastructure. Work on the bridge progressed without blocking traffic, rail operations or shipping at the port that manages 15% of cargo imported by sea into the United States. It is a construction site that has gone ahead non-stop in full safety during the COVID-19 emergency.

This day is important for Genoa as it is for Salini Impregilo in its emphasis on safety at all its work sites for World Day for Safety and Health at Work organized by the International Labour Organization (ILO). “We are fully aware that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to rethink completely how we behave. It is an emergency that has unequivocally left its mark, splitting life in two, between the one that we had before it and the one that we will have after it. In Genoa, we have shown that it is possible to work in safety thanks to the measures taken and the commitment of hundreds of people today on site,” said Salini.

With the completion of the structure, Salini Impregilo will light up “Ponte Italia” (Bridge Italy) , a tricolour of lights that from this evening until the Labour Day on May 1 will light up the entire length of the bridge and every one of the 18 piers, those concrete giants that support the new bridge’s deck, reflecting the colours of Italy’s flag, the initiative is a tribute to the public institutions and all Genovese, with a solemn thought to the families of the victims of the collapsed Morandi Bridge. “Ponte Italia” will be in addition to the tricolour laser lights that have been beaming across the entire length of the structure every evening for more than a month to express the Group’s closeness to the country and Genoa during the COVID-19 emergency. The illumination of the piers will be accompanied in a number of squares in the city by “Nessun Dorma” of the Turandot opera by Giacomo Puccini, a metaphorical aria about the bright future that awaits Italy, and the national anthem, to remind everyone how the project has become a new flag and a new model for the rebirth of Italy that starts with infrastructure. The event will be broadcast in Genoa on large screens at Terrazza Colombo and on the Canale 10 television channel. It will also shown via live streaming on www.webuildgroup.com and Primocanale’s website.