Last year in our country bank lending to businesses plummeted by 44 billion. Sounding the alarm is Standard & Poor's, which supports it what has already been pointed out by the number one of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. in a study published today, the rating agency argues that to deal with the bank credit crunch more and more Italian companies, including medium-sized ones, will increase their use of bond issues, which reached €20 billion last year.
At the moment, recalls the rating agency, Italian companies obtain 90% of their financing needs from banks, a source destined to become increasingly dry due to the long phase of deleveraging and readjustment of accounts awaiting credit institutions . According to S&P, the recent regulatory interventions that facilitate them, above all from a fiscal point of view, will also push companies to make greater use of bond issues.
It is however about an evolution that could prove beneficial: “We believe that greater recourse to the bond market could help improve the capital structure of Italian companies and reduce their refinancing risks – commented Renato Panichi, an analyst at Standard & Poor's – because it would lengthen the maturity times of the bonds and diversify the investor base".
The process of progressive replacement of one funding source with another, however, is likely to be long and difficult, As Italian institutional investors have so far not shown a great propensity to purchase medium-sized corporate bonds, which 80% attract foreign investors. And it is precisely the absence of a sufficient internal market, concludes Standard & Poor's, which has so far kept issues below the 200 million euro mark.
