No speculation: Italy offers great opportunities. This is the reassurance that came today from Blackrock, the US super-investment fund which in recent weeks has considerably increased investments in our country.
“Italy, its market, medium and large energy, telecommunications, credit or manufacturing companies are extremely attractive not just in terms of ratings, but also for hopefully more structural factors, such as reforms and privatizations – said Andrea Viganò, Italy manager of the American fund, in an interview published today in Il Sole 24 Ore -. Our goal is to make clients earn by investing only from a long-term perspective, without influencing managers, influencing the shareholders or directing the choices of companies. We are not raiders, speculators or partners of this or that consortium, as unfortunately they painted us”.
The latest investment in chronological order is the one that has resulted the US giant with 6,85% of Banco Popolare. The operation – announced this morning by Consob – follows similar acquisitions in the capital of the other main Italian credit institutions: Blackrock, in fact, recently reached 5,75% of Ps, the 5,25% of Unicredit, the 5% of Intesa Sanpaolo, the 4,9% of Atlantia and 4,8% of Telecom Italy.
“We don't have proprietary trading – continued Viganò –, we don't have conflicts of interest and not even a single decision-making center or centralized direction on investments: each fund decides independently. We have never asked or will ask to have one of our representatives on the board of a listed company”.
