More than a Report to the market, President Vegas addressed the political system in the traditional annual ceremony in Piazza Affari, which he asked for new rules for the transparency of the financial markets. In the chairman's opinion, he seems to perceive the idea that transparency of information can flow naturally from prospectuses once they are drawn up in a simplified and understandable way for the reader and the investor.
I think the market, and not the politicians, would have expected more given the events of 2015.
For example, the Meeting with the financial market lacks reference to conflicts of interest, and how to overcome them, between issuer and saver, as happened in the case of small saved banks (theme reduced on page 30 of the Complete Report to an insignificant and cautious annotation that "a first profile concerns the possible intensification of conflicts of interest between banks and customers"; the declining number of listed companies (from 272 in 2010 to 242 in 2015) a sign of the lack of attractiveness of the Italian stock exchange, to which regulation could contribute Consob, and its endemic operational manipulability, we don't know how much sanctioned; to the role of financial analysts and to the operational advice of monographic studies which have always favored Buy (58%), compared to Hold /35%) and almost never Sell (6,7 .XNUMX %), in evident "complacency" with the issuer, and so on.
A prudent and singular omission of information to the financial market could lead to excessive confidence in savers. In fact, President Vegas assures that, since 2007, Consob has carried out about a thousand supervisory interventions in the field of investment services. Overall, they covered around 90 per cent of the savings invested in financial instruments attributable to retail customers. It would have been interesting if during the solemn celebration the market was also informed of the results of the inspections in order to avoid generating a fictitious confidence in the investor in the effectiveness of Consob supervision. Are you all right President Vegas? Can we rest assured for investment services and believe that the case of the four banks has been overlooked as it is included in that 10 percent not subject to inspections?
It is an omission that seems to have forgotten the admonition of Professor B. Black of Stanford University in the USA, namely that “there is magic in the securities markets. Investors pay enormous amounts of money to have intangible rights, the value of which depends on the quality of the information that the investor receives and on the honesty of other gentlemen of which the investor knows almost nothing”. Therefore, not only "quality of information" but also "honesty of other gentlemen" which recalls the theme of the governance of joint-stock companies which, although unlisted, place their own shares or bonds in the portfolio of savers, supposedly informed on the combinations of risk and investment of what the honesty of the other gentlemen is proposing to him. President Vegas would have, on this solemn occasion, been able to recall that "with the growing development of joint-stock companies, a particular financial technique is therefore formed whose central purpose consists in ensuring control over the largest possible capital with the smallest possible other people's capital". These are words that could have come from the pen of a Chicago boy today, or from that of a financial consultant, or the president of a pyramid structure such as those that crowd the Italian stock exchange; or to Roberto Calvi, who exercised control of Banco Ambrosiano with only a very limited share package. Instead they are words that came out of the pen of Rudolf Hilferding who in 1909 expounded them in his work "Financial Capital" (translated by Feltrinelli in 1961, p. 140), and who had also appropriately premised such words that "the ability to dispose of capital other people is all in all advantageous (...), the management of a company, regardless of any other consideration, has a decisive importance in being able to influence the movement of share ownership on the stock market” (p. 139). In summary, little own capital to maneuver a lot of other people's capital. It might be time to reflect on whether it is not appropriate, after the events of 2015, to prevent banks from directly placing their shares in the portfolios of their current account holders, even if they are supposed to be informed.
