To return to growth “it is necessary to promote the development of alternative financial intermediation channels to the banking one, in particular it is essential to focus on the development of the securities market. The financial crisis and the economic recession have put our credit system in difficulty, which will hardly be able to continue to represent, as happened in the past, the main financing channel of the economy”. This was stated by the president of Consob, Giuseppe Vegas, during his speech at the Authority's annual meeting with the financial market.
“While the stock and bond markets should play a much more significant role – he added – other innovative forms of non-bank intermediation are developing, aimed at establishing closer links between savings and businesses. I am referring in particular to the collection of risk capital on online portals (crowfunding), to direct loans between private subjects (peer-to-peer lending) to investment funds that disburse loans to companies (credit funds), to the issue of bonds by unlisted SMEs (mini bonds)".
On the IPO side, Vegas recalled that at least ten companies have already expressed their intention to list on the MTA of Piazza Affari during 2014: "These are encouraging data, which lead us to believe that the current economic situation can be assessed as a turning point".
FOREIGN INVESTORS: TOO MANY OBSTACLES HOLDING THEM BACK
As for foreign investors, who have returned to appear forcefully on the Italian market, "they are indispensable for relaunching our economy, strengthening the capital market and the competitiveness of our economic system - continued the number one of Consob -, above all where the savings training at the domestic level is not adequately channeled to finance the growth and internationalization of businesses and investments in new technologies. Their presence must be interpreted as a positive sign of confidence in our market, but there are many obstacles and disincentives that create a brake on investments. They act on several levels: from the labor market to the possibility of obtaining a rapid solution to civil and commercial disputes, to administrative and bureaucratic constraints. Each new regulation should be evaluated on the basis of an indicator of its ability to repel or attract investors”.
With reference only to listed companies, during 2013 the number of companies owned by foreign institutional investors with shares exceeding the relevant threshold increased from 52 to 69: "In order for the interest shown by investors to persist over time - underlined Vegas - to the legislator and the Supervisory Authorities have the task of supporting the unfolding of market forces, favoring a competitive, open and inclusive environment".
PRIVATIZATIONS: OK FOR DEVELOPMENT, NOT FOR COVERAGE OF NEEDS
As far as privatizations are concerned, according to the Authority's president “they are not a mere means of covering financial needs, but, also thanks to the positive effects on the reduction of the debt stock, they represent a driving force for the development and competitiveness of the markets. The listing of public enterprises, both at a central and local level, represents an important sign of the will to reduce the sphere of public intervention in the economy and to open it more to free initiative and market forces. With the great privatizations of the XNUMXs, the Stock Exchange made an important dimensional and cultural leap. Today all this could happen again”.
ECB EXAMS PENALISE ITALIAN BANKS
“The effects on the overall stability of the financial system will be positive – continued Vegas – but the impact on growth will be affected by the further narrowing of the margins necessary to support the disbursement of new credit to businesses. The Aqr and the ECB stress tests could penalize the more traditional banking systems and with more transparent and concentrated assets, such as ours, on corporate loans, government bonds and real estate. On government bonds, the valuation at market prices is discriminatory for Italian banks compared to those of other countries which have very significant and no less risky exposures in derivatives and structured securities”.
WEAK SIGNS OF RECOVERY, FRAGILE BALANCE
Finally, Vegas underlined that – from a general perspective – in Italy and in the other more vulnerable countries of the Eurozone “weak signs of recovery are emerging. Italy has made significant efforts to consolidate public finances, based on rigorous policies to reduce current expenditure and is now launching the necessary structural reforms, the only ones able, together with better regulation of the markets, to affect the efficiency and on the competitiveness of our production system. We are facing a window of opportunity that must be seized without hesitation. It is not enough to act on public finances if at the same time we do not intervene with determination on the factors that hold back the competitiveness of the system”.
