17 September 2006

Reforming the Stock Exchange

The resignation of Tronchetti Provera obliges a serious reflection on the mechanisms that regulate the Italian Stock Exchange.

The difficulties in which the Telecom group now finds itself in fact have their origin in the lack of rules, rather than in the market.
Among these, the mechanism of the Chinese boxes which make it possible to gain control of companies with a ridiculously tiny percentage. The absence of true representation for those shareholders owning small quantities who have no voice in the shareholders meetings and who are rarely represented on the Board of Directors.

The presence of directors and statutory auditors on more than one Board of Directors with the potential for a conflict of interests that is at times very evident. The possibility in a balance sheet to attribute share values that do not correspond to the market value as has happened for Olimpia (the company controlling Telecom), that values Telecom shares at twice their value on the Stock Exchange. The possibility, at the time of acquisition to put companies into debt at such levels that their management cannot support.

Without new rules offering guarantees for investors, the Italian Stock Exchange cannot develop and will become still more crippled, controlled by a small number of powerful groups and it will definitively ward off foreign investments.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Economy