‘No scandal’ if Italy revises rules for mandatory bids, Treasury junior minister says #ItalyFinance

MILAN (Reuters) – There would be no reason for protest if the Italian government reviews the ownership thresholds triggering mandatory takeover bids for public companies, Treasury Junior Minister Federico Freni said on Monday.

Reuters reported last month that Rome was considering changing rules for mandatory bids, with sources saying the current 25% level envisaged for large firms would likely be raised.

“If someone asked me if I would change the (25%) threshold, it would not seem so shocking to me,” Freni told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Milan. “It would not be a scandal.”

Mandatory bids currently need to be launched by a shareholder whose stake rises above a 25% threshold in large companies, in the absence of another shareholder with a higher stake.

A second 30% threshold is in force for small and medium-sized enterprises. Italy classifies a company as an SME when its capitalisation is below 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion).

Freni pointed out that Italy was the only major European country to have two floors for mandatory offers and that in other countries the threshold was usually higher than 30%.

The government is moving to reform Italy’s 27-year-old financial law through at least three separate decrees to be adopted in stages this year.

It will unveil the first in June, Freni said, ruling out the government would deal with the mandatory bid issue in that decree.

($1 = 0.8783 euros)

(Reporting by Elisa Anzolin, writing by Giuseppe Fonte,editing by Gavin Jones)