Unless there is a last-minute agreement, the Italian Stock Exchange will experience the first strike in its history on Thursday. The unions complain about the failure to pay contractual increases, but also about the Euronext group’s lack of interest in the country.
The shortage of quotes
The strike comes at a difficult time for Piazza Affari. Like other European price lists, Milan is struggling to attract medium-large sized companies to listing, as demonstrated by the sensational reverse of Golden Goose one step away from the entrance to Palazzo Mezzanotte. The reasons for the lack of hypos in Europe are known and, for the most part, date back over time: the rise in interest rates, competition from private equity funds, the lack of a single capital market, the very short-term logic now prevalent on the stock exchange, where a growing share of stock trades are decided by algorithms in the last 10 minutes of the session with criteria that have nothing to do with the performance of budgets.
Delistings in 2024
More than other European stock exchanges, however, Milan also struggles to keep already listed companies on the stock exchange. Fbetween 2013 and 2023, according to data provided to Courier from Assonime, they bid farewell to the main market in Piazza Affari via delisting 97 groups with a total capitalization well in excess of 100 billion euros. And this year, despite the records of the Ftse Mib index, between the main market and the EGM dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises, 22 delistings have already been completed (Tod’s) or announced (Saes Getters and Salcef) on Piazza Affari, for a total value of approximately 28 billion.
Government countermeasures
Many exits have different reasons such as an acquisition (the move of Saras from Moratti to Vitol), a group reorganization (the takeover bid for Unipol’s subsidiary UnipolSai which will remain listed) or the transfer to another list (Cnh in New York) . Sometimes, however, especially when it comes to medium or small companies, the farewell to the stock exchange is also the result of dissatisfaction with the lack of attention from investors and the difficulty for companies in tackling long-term transformation plans from listed companies. Problems that the legislator intended to overcome with the Capital Law and with the forthcoming establishment of a fund for listed SMEs participated by Cdp. Without, however, being able to reverse the trend of Piazza Affari which, in relation to GDP, has yet to recover the levels prior to the 2009 financial crisis.
