The alliance of Italian Cooperatives has reported a research resulting from the collaboration with the AGCI Study Office, with the Confcooperative Study Area and with the Legacoop Study Center, aimed at identifying Italian cooperatives potentially interested in accessing the debt capital market . This is the possibility of issuing securities (bonds, minibonds) by seeking alternative financing instruments to the banking channel to manage ordinary business, or expand into foreign markets, or even to make investments aimed at a general recovery of competitiveness.
The analysis was carried out considering as binding, a turnover of at least 5 million euros, an Ebitda always positive in the last three years and equal to at least 5% of the turnover in the last financial year and, lastly, a financial leverage (Debts ratio financial / P. Netto) no higher than 4. Added to these parameters are the provisions of the regulations of the Development Decree and the regulation of ExtraMot Pro, the new platform created by Borsa Italiana to accept bonds and financial bills issued pursuant to the Development Decree , or the publication of the financial statements for the last two years, of which the last is audited.
The analysis conducted to identify companies with characteristics congruent with the parameters described above is based on a set of 67.175 active cooperatives with financial statements filed in the three-year period 2010-2011-2012 and present in the Aida database of Bureau Van Dijk. Among these, 2.444 companies were considered with revenues, in 2012, exceeding €5 million, and, more specifically, those which in the three-year period always had a positive EBITDA: these companies are 1.734 in all.
In terms of number, the agri-food sector is the prevalent one (44,7%) followed by Services (18,4%) and social cooperation (16,2%). In terms of the value of production expressed, on the other hand, the distribution sector prevails which, with only 12 cooperatives, accounts for 27,5% of the total. The total amount of financial payables stands at 12 billion euros, 53,5% of total production in 2012. If considered from the point of view of company size, the 407 cooperatives identified are divided into 44 companies with PV in 2012 of over 50 million € which account for 10,8% of the total, and 363 medium-small sized companies, 89,2%.
The territorial distribution sees a clear prevalence of the northern area of the country with 65,8% of the cooperatives, with Emilia Romagna, Trentino AA and Lombardy in the lead.
