And now also As Roma. After Atlantia and Coima Res, another ‘symbol’ company, the football team owned by Dan Friedkin, will leave Piazza Affari following a public offer. The announcement was made a few days ago and adds a piece to the haemorrhage of listed companies, among new ones delisting announced and another phenomenon that seems to have worsened in recent years: the hypo of Italian companies on alternative lists in Milan, from Wall Street to Amsterdam.
This is not a good time for our capital market, already undercapitalised, lagging behind its European competitors: it faces a 2022 that promises to be more complicated than expected after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. And his capitalization it could go down again. The approximately 757 billion euro reached at the end of 2021 fell, at the end of April, to 678 billion euro. To weigh are the sales triggered on equities since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. And the bill, in mid-May, is in the red for Ftse Eb: since February 20, the date of the start of the Russian invasion, the index has lost more than 9% and the volatility does not seem destined to end soon.
Among the delistings already booked for this year there are two significant companies, with over 19 billion capitalization in all: the first is Atlantia, which will leave the stock exchange once the offer promoted by Edizione and Blackstone has been completed, and the second is Coima Res, which will greet Euronext Milan at the behest of its shareholder Qatar Holding. According to the rumors, it is not excluded that Autogrill may leave the stock market of the Edition galaxy, should the reorganization and merger with Dufry become concrete. In addition to AS Roma, another possible delisting in 2022 would be that of Cellularline, to which Esprinet presented an expression of interest.
At the end of the year, the delisting of Cattolica Assicurazioni is expected, after the takeover of Generali concluded last November, while that of Falck Renewables and La Doria is imminent. Luxottica, on the other hand, announced the acquisition of Fedon, which should be followed by the delisting. In February 2022 Cerved also left the lists, after a takeover bid, and shortly before it was Bim’s turn.
The “stampede” is offset by a series of admissions: the last most important is the Iveco Group and two other big names are also expected in the year that has begun: Plenitude and Sisal. However, for a small and still underpowered market like the Italian one, any delisting can become a problem in terms of overall capitalization. In addition to this, the Italian stock exchange seems to suffer from an attractiveness deficit compared to other markets, so much so that from 2021 some Italian companies have chosen to go public elsewhere.
This is the case of Stevanato Group, which launched its IPO on Wall Street, of Genenta and Ermenegildo Zegna, who have chosen Nasdaq. Vam Investments Spac went public instead in Amsterdam. This is also an aspect linked to the reference regulatory framework, as also underlined by the latest Italian Capital Market Monitor created by Equita. Last year, despite the good performance of the Ftse Mib, equity transactions raised just over 8 billion euros. There were 19 billion in Paris, 35 in Frankfurt and 55 in London.
“The truth is that in Italy there is no fiscal lever that incentives equity in all its components, including stock market prices. And this is a shame, it’s absurd”, he underlines Stefano Caselli, full professor of the Finance Department at Bocconi University who has been dealing with the subject for thirty years as a scholar. “For example – he explains to Ruetir – we could start talking about a differentiated, lower IRES rate for companies that plan to go public”.
On the delistings, however, there is no need to be scandalized: “It is always seen as an escape from the stock market, but it is part of the life cycle of any company. If I look at a story like that Atlantia I see that it has had its own path, now we need to understand what he wants to do; the same has happened to Sias of the Gavio group. It is not excluded that these companies, in the event that private equity do their job, may return to the stock market in five years. Delisting is never an escape from a market because it is not liked, it is often functional to the strategies of a company and its investors “. The important thing, he argues, “is the ability of a list to attract as many companies, there must always be an interesting pipeline”.
According to Caselli, Borsa Italiana “has done an excellent job so far, just think of initiatives such as Elite”. Now that it is part of the Euronext group, however, a price list like that of Milan Stock Exchange “must stand out, become attractive for something special”. In addition, “it must push medium and medium-sized companies to go public. Small and large companies are not enough”. In the future, what we risk is “to have large traditional companies with global ambitions on the stock market and very small companies, without having the middle part, which is the backbone of the stock exchanges”. (by Vittoria Vimercati)
