by Giuseppe Fonte and Elvira Pollina

Rome (Reuters) – Italy plans to bring the compulsory public purchase offer (OPA) for large listed companies, shows a draft decree consulted by Reuters on Wednesday, as part of a broader reform of financial regulations in the peninsula.

The 30% threshold is already applied for so -called small and medium -sized companies. An SME in Italy is a company whose market capitalization is less than a billion euros.

This draft decree, which confirms information reported by Reuters in April, could have important consequences for groups like Telecom Italia (TIM) where italiane post, supported by the State, has a 24.8%stake, which makes it the first shareholder of the telecom operator.

Italiane post could thus buy additional TIM shares without being forced to launch an offer on the entire capital of the telecom operator, two sources were told to Reuters to the file.

Rome also plans to bring back the period to calculate the price of the public purchase offer.

The market supervisory authority, consobe, could also set a deadline in which a potential buyer will have to share his decision to launch an offer on his target. In the event of refusal of response or negative response, the buyer in question cannot make an offer for the following 12 months.

The decree should be approved by the government during the day, according to a state representative.

The services of the president of the Italian council, Giorgia Meloni, said that the latter wanted to reform the financial rules after a consultation with the various stakeholders and organizations in the sector, while seeking means of strengthening the role of Borsa Italiana.

Operating a turnaround compared to decades of policies promoting business buyouts, Giorgia Meloni seeks to encourage business leaders to raising their company in Milan without fear of losing control.

Asset managers, including large foreign funds, recommend rules preventing the concentration of power in the hands of a few.

Last year, numerous representatives of the Italian financial sector had expressed their concern about a government measure which gave investors a more important right of way on the way in which the boards of directors of companies presented a list of candidates for the next mandate.

(Giuseppe Fonte report in Rome and Elvira Pollina in Milan, Claude Chendjou, edited by Blandine Hénault)

Copyright © 2025 Thomson Reuters