Easier and less onerous listings and welcome regulatory updates for companies already listed on Piazza Affari are already being studied by Consob
A large proportion of voluntary delistings, however, Intermonte had said in one of its studies earlier this year, are driven by opportunistic reasons
Between 2017 and 2021, listed companies that had exited Piazza Affari subtracted 55 billion euros of capitalization from Milan’s listings, a study conducted by Polimi and Intermonte Sim calculated. However, from the beginning of 2022 to last August, the “count” of delisting (not due to M&A transactions) has already reached 5.3 billion euros, with a long series of noisy goodbyes. The latest is the announced farewell of the Agnelli family’s holding company, Exor – which capitalizes about 15.5 billion euros and will leave the list on September 27. During 2022, big names such as Tod’s, Falck Renewables, Cerved, and, following the acquisition, Atlantia and Autogrill have already announced or completed their Piazza Affari exit. The Italian stock exchange is in danger of increasingly becoming a marketplace for small and medium-sized companies, currently attracting only five companies among the world’s 500 largest according to Fortune: Intesa Sanpaolo, Eni, Enel, Poste and Assicurazioni Generali.
In response to the declining attractiveness of Piazza Affari, the Ministry of Economy has already proposed an eased path for future listings on Milan’s stock exchanges, reducing time, costs, and red tape. Consob is currently examining the revision and, if approved, will become operational from October 2023. In the meantime, Piazza Affari’s loss of appeal has become a case of international resonance, which was also highlighted in the columns of the Financial Times. According to what Professor Giancardo Giudici (Politecnico di Milano School of Management) told the British newspaper, the regulation of the Italian stock exchange is an essential cause of its loss of attractiveness for large companies.
Last July, the Mef published the outcome of the consultation on the so-called Green Paper on the competitiveness of capital markets, admitting that the Milan Stock Exchange is “unattractive” for both listed and “listing” companies due to the “greater onerousness of the listing process and the costs of remaining on the markets, as well as the lower flexibility of the corporate system compared to the experiences of other European markets.”
Among the lines of action indicated by market participants consulted by Mef were, on the one hand, streamlining listing procedures, which would meet the needs of small and medium-sized companies. On the other hand, for already listed companies, “the Green Paper’s reflection that received the most feedback and provoked deeper reflection from the participants in the consultation” was “that related to the revision of the regulations on multiple-vote and plus-vote shares.” For listed companies in Italy, there is a ban on the issuance of multiple-vote shares (one share that can be worth up to three votes at the shareholders’ meeting), while the increased vote (up to two votes) can be recognized provided the investment is retained for at least 24 months. It would have been the Italian stock exchange’s dissimilarity on the enhanced voting shares that prompted Exor to abandon Milan and head to Amsterdam, Intermonte ceo Guglielmo Manetti told Ft.
Increasing the number of IPOs and keeping the big names in Italian business in Milan has become a priority for the government. In the study conducted by Intermonte and Polimi, it was noted how the number of delistings due to internal decisions of the administration (and not, for example, as a result of acquisitions) has been increasing over time, reaching eight in 2021.
Despite the regulatory problems, it is nevertheless stated how, in many cases, opportunism is one of the dominant reasons in cases of delisting ‘wanted’ by management. In some instances, Intermonte had stated, “delisting appears to be an opportunistic maneuver, to withdraw one’s shares from the market at a good price.” In other circumstances, “one exits the stock exchange to subsequently implement strategies and restructuring that would be more complex to implement with the status of a listed company due to regulatory ties or to avoid a confrontation with external investors and the market.”
If voluntary delistings on Piazza Affari have occurred “for opportunistic reasons, thus viewing Piazza Affari as a ‘sliding door’ from which to enter and exit for convenience,” it is legitimate to ask to what extent updating regulation will reverse the trend.
