The phenomenon offoreign entrepreneurship in Italy has assumed an increasingly important role in recent years. This is demonstrated by an analysis entitled "Foreign entrepreneurship in Italy: which economic-financial results?" Conducted by the Studies and Research Department of Banca Intesa Sanpaolo.
Starting from a sample of 1.400 foreign companies, the study implements a comparison with Italian companies in the same sectors of specialization and with similar company sizes. The results show that, in the three-year period 2011-2013, foreign companies recorded a slightly better than turnover (-6,8% for foreign companies vs. -7,8% for Italian companies) also due to a greater sacrifice of unit margins (-0,6% between 2011 and 2013 vs. -0,4%).
In parallel profitability of industrial management, while decreasing, however remained higher than that of Italian companies (4,9% vs. 4,6%), thanks to a more efficient use of invested capital.
The study, based on companies with a turnover exceeding 500 thousand euros, highlights in particular “a nucleus of «winning» medium-sized enterprises (between 10 and 50 million euros in turnover) which have managed to grow (+7,6% between 2011 and 2013) and to strengthen their industrial profitability, which rose to 6,2% in 2013”.
Returning to the comparison with Italian companies, the analysis by Banca Intesa's Studies and Research Department also underlines a good competitive positioning of immigrant companies on international markets, which, in the future, could favor them in terms of growth.
Despite the encouraging data, there are some elements of fragility, first of all the low degree of capitalisation, clearly lower than the already low Italian average level.
