Has Italy undergone a metamorphosis from a realm of SMEs to an incubator of large companies? Not really, but in relative terms (surprisingly) we are in the European average and in absolute values only the Germans beat us. According to the numbers published today by the Italian accounting body, which has reworked data from the Unioncamere archive on joint-stock companies, in 2009 our country had 6.025 large companies, equal to 0,6% of the total.
So far, nothing strange. The curious aspect is in comparison with the rest of the European Union. From the surveys of the Center for Strategy & Evaluation Services relating to 2010, in fact, it emerges that the percentage of large companies in the EU average it is identical to the Italian one (0,6%).
Even more unexpected is the comparison with individual countries, which sees Italy emerge defeated only by comparison with the Germany (strong of 8.610 large companies, 1% of the total). In an ideal ranking, however, they would remain below us England (4.081 large companies, 0,5% of the total), France (2.330, equal to 0,2%) e Spain (5.101, or 0,4%).
Of course, we must remember that these numbers have a purely quantitative value and they do not take into account the weight that large companies have on the GDP of their respective countries. If we introduced this criterion, our country would no longer occupy the second position in the ranking, since small and medium-sized enterprises have a much more decisive role in Italy than in the other major European economies.
Suffice it to say that the numbers proposed so far do not take into consideration individual micro-enterprises, the consistency of which distinguishes Italy from other European countries. Including these companies in the count, according to Istat, we arrive at a total number of about 4,3 million companies, against the 927.745 taken into consideration by the OIC.
In any case, even the simple quantitative data on Italian capital companies are significant if we take into account the limits beyond which we speak of large companies. Companies that satisfy at least two of the following belong to this category criteria: total assets exceeding 20 million euros, net amount of sales and services greater than or equal to 40 million euros and number of employees during the year greater than or equal to 250.
These thresholds are some of the changes proposed by the Ministry of the Economy in the implementation of the EU directive 34/2013 (to be implemented by 15 July 2015) which replaces, by repealing them, the EEC directives IV and VII on the subject of annual and consolidated accounts of capital companies. These are two drafts of legislative decrees: they were yesterday on the agenda of the Council of Ministers and were approved in advance. Now the process will continue with the opinions of the parliamentary commissions.
The first of the two decrees introduces the new discipline regarding transparency obligations for companies in the extractive sector and in the exploitation of forest areas. The measure integrates and modifies the civil code and legislative decree 127 of 9 April 1991 in order to align the provisions on statutory and consolidated financial statements with the provisions of the directive European. The text also makes changes to legislative provisions to adapt their content to the provisions of the Directive or for coordination needs regarding the annual and consolidated accounts of insurance companies and statutory auditing of accounts.
The second decree, on the other hand, regulates the activity of financial intermediaries who draw up financial statements on the basis of the provisions of Directive 86/635/EEC and the cases in which a banking or financial intermediary supervised by the Bank of Italy is required to draw up the consolidated financial statements on the basis of international accounting standards. It comes finally granted to the Bank of Italy the power to issue provisions with regard to the technical forms of the financial statements and of the situations of the accounts intended for the public as well as the methods and terms of publication of the situations of the accounts, providing for appropriate forms of coordination with Consob.
