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Plan your investments, read our analysis on the Italian and world economy to find out more about our policies and institutional activities.
Banca Ifis SpA is an Italian bank specialized in the purchase and management of portfolios of non-performing loans and in the provision of banking services to SMEs and households. Listed on Borsa Italiana's MTA market since 2003, Ifis has 26 commercial offices in Italy
28 Sep 2021
Illimity Bank SpA is an Italian challenger bank specialized in the provision of growth credit to SMEs, the purchase and servicing of NPLs, the offer of direct banking services to retail and corporate clients, and the establishment and management of investment funds
17 Aug 2021
Nexi SpA is an Italian company active in the provision of payment solutions to banks, merchants, companies and consumers. Founded in 1939 as ICBPI (Central Institute of Italian Popular Banks), Nexi is about to become Europe's largest payment group with the acquisition of competitors Nets and SIA
21 Jul 2021
Kedrion SpA is an Italian biopharmaceutical company specialized in the collection of human plasma and in the development, production and distribution of plasma-derivatives. Established in 2001, Kedrion is currently market leader in Italy and operates in over 100 countries worldwide, with 5 production plants and 27 plasma-collection centers
27 May 2021
Banca del Mezzogiorno - Mediocredito Centrale SpA (MCC) is a state-owned lender whose statutory function is to support the development of companies in Southern Italy. Without branches across the country, MCC operates as a second-level bank through agreements with Italy's main banking groups and by taking part in syndicated loans
27 Apr 2021
Casino Guichard-Perrachon is a French company mainly active in the food retail sector. The Group operates in France and in Latin America (through its subsidiaries GPA and Grupo Exito) and owns the Cdiscount e-commerce platform
24 Feb 2021
Cassa Centrale Raiffeisen dell'Alto Adige SpA is the central institution of a network of 39 Alto Adige/Sudtirol-based raiffeisen banks. The lender supports and coordinates raiffeisen banks' activities on credit and financial markets, while acting as a traditional commercial bank for businesses and individuals
20 Jan 2021
Iccrea Banca SpA is the head company of the Iccrea Cooperative Banking Group, the fourth Italian banking group by total assets (EUR168.5bn as of June 2020) and the third in the country by number of branches (10.5% of the nation's total). The Group, which currently encompasses 136 Cooperative Credit Banks, is directly supervised by the European Central Bank
24 Nov 2020
Banca Farmafactoring is an Italian bank specialized in the management and transfer of trade receivables owed to third party suppliers by public administrations and national healthcare systems. Active in 12 European countries, the group's core business is providing liquidity to companies exposed to the public sector's payment delays, mainly through the tool of non-recourse factoring
29 Oct 2020
AMCO SpA is a company specialized in the management and recovery of impaired loans, wholly controlled by Italy's Ministry of Economy and Finance. As of 1H20, the firm had EUR23.2bn soured loans under management towards 244,000 counterparties. AMCO plays a critical role for the Italian government in the clean-up of troubled banks' balance sheets, rating agency Standard & Poor's said
13 Oct 2020
Azimut Holding SpA is the parent company of one of Italy's main players in the asset management sector, with more than 80 firms in 17 countries around the world and over EUR55bn in Assets under Management. The Azimut Group operates in the promotion, management and distribution of financial and insurance products, mainly towards affluent and high-net-worth retail customers
16 Sep 2020
Founded in 1961, Marcolin SpA is an Italian company specialized in the design, manufacturing and distribution of eyewear products. With activities in more than 125 countries through a network of over 150 distributors, the Group has sold about 14m glasses in 2019
02 Jul 2020
Founded in 2011, Milan-listed Banca Sistema is a bank specialized in purchasing trade receivables owed by Italy's Public Administrations. The lender has been expanding its activities in the businesses of salary/pension-secured loans and gold/jewelry-backed loans, most recently through the acquisition of Atlantide SpA and of Intesa Sanpaolo's pawnbroking unit
18 Mar 2020
Attica Bank is Greece's fifth largest lender in terms of total assets. Founded in 1925, the bank is emerging from the crisis that has hit its home country over the last decade. The renewed confidence by investors towards Greece's assets, driven by the country's economic recovery, has lifted Attica's shares by 254% in 2019, but the lender still has many challenges to deal with
18 Feb 2020
Ansaldo Energia (AEN) is an Italian company among the leaders in the global power generation industry, one of the few players in the world in the gas turbines production sector. AEN, controlled by CDP Equity and Shanghai Electric, operates three business lines: New Units, Service, and Nuclear
11 Dec 2019
Established in 2017 from the merger of Sweden's Intrum Justitia and Norway's Lindorff, Intrum AB is the leading company in Europe in the provision of debt collection services and in the purchase of portfolios of overdue receivables
31 Oct 2019
Maire Tecnimont is a leading provider of engineering and construction, technology and licensing services worldwide. The Group's activities mainly focus on the design, engineering and construction of plants for the oil, gas and petrochemicals and fertilizer processing industries
14 Oct 2019
La Tecnica nel Vetro is an Italian company operating in the sector of flat glass processing and transformation. The company produces a wide range of glass (monolithic, insulating, laminated, jumbo-size, screen printing glass, enamelled, special glass) with industrial and artistic applications in the building sector.
16 Sep 2019
Tereos is a French cooperative of 12,000 farmers specialized in the production of sugar, ethanol, starch and sweeteners. The group operates 49 industrial sites in 18 countries across 4 continents. Cooperative partners supply most of the raw materials used in the production processes. The main customers are food manufacturing companies, fuel distributors, paper and pharmaceuticals producers
16 Jul 2019
Fincantieri S.p.A. (Bloomberg Ticker: FCTIM) is an Italian company operating in the shipbuilding industry for more than 230 years, world leader in the Cruise sector. The Fincantieri Group deals with the design and construction of cruise ships, ferries, naval vessels and mega yachts, and operates in the Offshore sector through it Norwegian unit Vard. The company is listed on the Mercato Telematico Azionario (MTA) of Borsa Italiana.
02 Oct 2018
Astaldi S.p.A. is an Italian company active, for more than 95 years, in the civil engineering and construction industry. The Group, listed on the
STAR segment of the Milan Stock Exchange since 2002, has built works in more than 40 countries around the world, currently has roughly 100
active work sites in over 30 countries in 4 different continents.
12 Jun 2018
The Moby Group operates in the passengers and freight maritime transportation between Italy, France and some Mediterranean islands (Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Tuscan Archipelago, Tremiti Islands, Malta). Moreover, the Group operates cruises in the Baltic Sea (Saint Petersburg, Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallin) and manages port operations in Olbia, Livorno, and Catania.
14 May 2018
Wind Tre S.p.A. operates in the Italian TLC sector and offers mobile, fixed-line and internet products and services to customers and firms. The firm
was born from the merger of H3G S.p.A and Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.A. thanks to a 50/50 joint venture between CK Hutchison and VimpelCom
(now VEON) for the management of their business in Italy. As of 12/31/2017, Wind Tre has 29.5 mln mobile customers and 2.7 mln fixed-line
customers. The distribution network is made of 1,635 exclusive sales points (689 Wind and 946 Tre) and 3,715 non-exclusive multibrand dealers.
03 May 2018
The holding company Estra S.p.A. - Energia Servizi Territorio Ambiente was founded in 2010 through the aggregation of three Tuscan publiclyowned
multi-utility groups (Consiag S.p.A., Intesa S.p.A. and Coingas S.p.A.) with the aim of taking advantage of existing synergies and becoming
a leading player in Central Italy's energy services. The business of the Group is structured in Strategic Areas related to the sectors of
procurement, distribution, sale and trading of natural gas, distribution a
15 Jan 2018
Axzon is a Denmark-based food producer specialized in processing of pig meat. The company masters the whole vertical production chain, including pig farming, meat processing, biogas production (heat and electricity) and arable (cereals for pig feed and silage harvest for biogas). Founded in 1994 by Tom Axelgaard, at 31 December 2016 the Axzon Group has 2,350 employees (2,423 in 2015).
19 Dec 2017
The spillovers of the coronavirus pandemic, the prospect of lower-for-longer interest rates, and competitive pressures arising from Intesa Sanpaolo's acquisition of smaller rival UBI Banca have created the ideal conditions for a new season of mergers and acquisitions among major Italian banks
11 Mar 2021
Italy's PD and 5SM have successfully passed their first electoral test since the coronavirus pandemic. The positive market reaction, with the yield on 30-year BTPs sliding to its lowest level ever, has reflected the importance of the electoral result for the stability of Giuseppe Conte's government
25 Sep 2020
After two months of extreme volatility in February and March, the euro has been on a path of gradual strengthening against the US dollar. While the trend of the exchange rate between the two currencies stokes evergreen prophecies about the inexorable end of the American exorbitant privilege, there are already those who, on the contrary, try to figure out what catalyst will this time reposition investors' followspot on the Old Continent
21 Aug 2020
Tuesday, July 21, 2020. 5:31 am, Central European Time. An electronic impulse branches out of a cubic-shaped building covered with a wood-and-glass structure in the center of Brussels. The signal spreads quickly through the fiber-optic cables that connect the palace to the rest of the world. It's a tweet by Charles Michel, President of the European Council. One word, four letters. There's no need for anything else. Deal
24 Jul 2020
On June 9, Finance minister Mario Centeno has announced his decision to leave Portugal's government, thus renouncing a second mandate as President of the Eurogroup (most likely to become head of his country's central bank). Although widely expected, Centeno's announcement comes at a highly convoluted time for the EU, as the divisive negotiation on the European Recovery Fund takes hold
19 Jun 2020
As the coronavirus-induced crisis unfolded, perpetual bonds have turned from topic of almost exclusive competence of scholars of economic history to potential building block of the European Recovery Fund. It's unlikely that the EU will decide to resort to the issuance of irredeemable debt. Yet, the trend that, already before the pandemic, has led to the sale of bonds with maturities as long as a century may be destined to continue
04 Jun 2020
Economic crises are typically due to either a contraction in aggregate demand or a reduction in aggregate supply. Clearly, the crisis caused by the coronavirus epidemic is all but "traditional". Most economists agree that, in the short term, the pandemic will cause low or even negative inflation. But extending the forecast horizon, the range of opinions on future price paths widens considerably
20 May 2020
For the ECB, 2020 was supposed to be the year of the strategy review but the coronavirus epidemic has unavoidably pushed the ambitious reform project into the background. Yet, the long-term drivers that motivated the launch of the overhaul (an ongoing ageing population, globalization, digitalization, climate change) have been heavily conditioned by the pandemic, whose impact on inflation has sparked an intense debate
06 May 2020
When European leaders decided to postpone the completion of the reform of the European Stability Mechanism it was quite clear that the controversy about the ESM was poised to explode again. However, no one could have imagined that the clash on the Eurozone bailout fund would reappear in a context like the current one, with the world grappling with a spreading coronavirus epidemic
06 Apr 2020
The first ECB meeting in 2020 has kicked off a strategic review of the central bank's activities, its second in twenty years. The wide-ranging policy review will go on until the end of the year, but the most important topics -- those relating to the very raison d'tre of the European Central Bank, namely the goal of price stability -- could already be resolved between June and July
21 Feb 2020
The risk-on stance on European bond markets abruptly stopped in the first month of 2020, when fears about the economic impact of a new coronavirus turned off investors' optimism. Only time will tell whether the deadly virus will be capable of slowing global growth in the longer term. As of now, its effect has been at least to postpone (one more time) the long-awaited return of the bond market to its pre-crisis 'normal'
06 Feb 2020
For about a month, the Italian political debate has been nearly monopolized by the quarrel about the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). The decision to delay the deal on the euro zone's bailout fund, whose finalization was expected by the end of 2019, has temporarily silenced a controversy that stays ready to re-explode from now to June 2020
09 Jan 2020
The budget cycle of eurozone member States will end on December 31 and, as proven by Italy's political debate, spending and tax plans can still change, even significantly. As for now, the analysis of the draft budgetary plans of the five largest economies in the eurozone highlights a lack of a real fiscal coordination among the 19 governments of the currency bloc
06 Dec 2019
Over the next three months, Italy and Europe will face a series of important changes: Ursula von der Leyen and Christine Lagarde will take on the leadership of the most important EU institutions, the UK could definitely leave the European Union, and the new Italian government will deliver the 2020 budget. However, it seems that the renewal looming on the horizon will actually be in the name of continuity
25 Sep 2019
The crisis of Astaldi has turned into the opportunity to strategically consolidate and revive the entire Italian construction sector through a coordinated and system-wide intervention by Salini Impregilo, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and some banks. The operation could subsequently be expanded to other troubled Italian builders.
19 Aug 2019
About six months have passed since Italy has succeeded in avoiding the launch of an Excessive Deficit Procedure due to the breach of the debt rule. Now, given the debt increase from 2017 to 2018, the launch of an EDP is once again a possibility. The first two 'preparatory' steps of the process have already been completed. Therefore, it's up to the ECOFIN, on a proposal from the Commission, to decide whether or not to start the actual procedure
01 Jul 2019
Carefully monitored by analysts and commentators in view of the European elections on May 23-26, the European sovereignist parties have two key issues in common: the fight against immigration and the criticism of the EU establishment. On other topics, however, differences emerge.
14 May 2019
The European Central Bank is reflecting on the measures to put in place to support a slowing economy. New instruments which, however, look back to the past (3 years ago), when for the first time the ECB began thinking about a tiering mechanism to limit the application of the (negative) deposit facility rate only to a part of the huge excess reserves held by European banks.
08 Apr 2019
Just a few words pronounced by Benoit Coeure have been enough to trigger a jump in the FTSE MIB index and a sudden shrinkage in the spread between Italian BTPs and German Bunds. The statements of the member of the ECB Executive Board were about the deeper-than-expected economic slowdown in the euro area and a new TLTRO program as a possible response to the phenomenon.
06 Mar 2019
Europe is about to elect an EP with an uncertain composition but reasonably more fragmented and critical of European institutions. What consequences will the strengthening of populist and nationalist movements have within the new EP? How will these parties influence the next stages of the European project?
26 Feb 2019
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