Not just BTPs. Strong hands are also betting on pieces of our most strategic businesses. And after the American giants, China has also made its move. Today Consob announced that the People's Bank of China (Pboc) has acquired stakes above 2% in Eni and Enel. Interest in Italy has intensified in recent months. First with huge flows on government bonds which, with signs of recovery in the Eurozone and the disappearance of fears about the stability of the single currency, have once again become attractive for investors looking for yields. JP Morgan recently revealed that Italian and Spanish government bond rates could drop by another 25-30 basis points (although some time ago a manager of the same investment bank had warned about the debt of the peripheral countries of the Eurozone : “there isn't much value anymore”, he said. And there are already those who are talking about the bubble).
The rush to buy on Europe and Italy in particular, it has intensified with the flight from emerging countries: the start of tapering by the Fed has brought attention back to those countries with strong structural imbalances and induced investors to abandon countries with greater risk. In 2013, for the first time since 2007, Americans became net buyers of European stocks again with over $120 billion invested (balance between purchases and sales). And so while the Btp-bund spread collapses (today we are at 175 basis points), companies are hoarding loans at closing prices and even the riskiest bond issues have no problem being absorbed. In the meantime, institutional investors have positioned themselves with a conviction not seen for some time: Blackrock, the American fund that manages more assets than the entire Italian public debt, has become the first shareholder of Unicredit, the second in Intesa Sanpaolo and Mps .
And tycoons from all over the world are shopping: the financier George Soros has become the third shareholder of the real estate company of the red Coops, Igd, and the Russians of the oil giant Rosnef have bought a good chunk of Pirelli, the Chinese stylist Zhu ChongYun has taken over the historic maison Krizia. And now the People's Bank of China (Pboc), the powerful Chinese central bank that decides the fate of the yuan and which has surpassed the Federal Reserve as the largest central bank in the world with 4,5 trillion dollars in assets, is also moving . And who has played a central role in enabling China's transition to a more market-oriented system, pushing interest rate deregultaion, trying to bring shadow banking under control, and promoting the use of the renminbi in financial and commercial transactions . AND which today, for the first time in Chinese history, invests massively in Italian state-controlled companies: Eni and Enel, just before the expiry of the mandates of CEOs Paolo Scaroni and Fulvio Conti (who have not yet been reappointed) and in conjunction with the privatization dossier. For some observers this is an anomalous behavior, because usually the People's Bank of China is very careful not to exceed the thresholds that trigger the communication to the market.
Italy has been working for some time to capture Beijing's interest. Shipments to China date back to a few years ago, in the midst of the crisis, when the spread was now at its highest exi hoped that the Dragon could inject its liquidity into the Italian debt. The contacts in fact go back first to Minister Tremonti, then continued with the Monti government and finally with Minister Zanonato. We knocked on the door of the CIC sovereign wealth fund and the subsidiary of the People's bank of China which manages Chinese foreign reserves (the Safe), while Prime Minister Monti tried to reassure the Chinese that the Eurozone crisis was over and that the reforms of his government were working. Back then, the answer was much interest in words but few concrete measures in deeds. The Cic himself had reported to Monti that there had been reflections on the Italy dossier. But finally the thumbs down came for concerns about Italy's labor market tightness. It may be a coincidence, but it took to unblock the impasse the recent meeting in Italy with the premier Renzi of the influential Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
