Italy's outgoing government is pressing ahead with plans to sell a majority stake in ITA Airways and hopes to choose its preferred bidder by the end of the month, Reuters reported. The government had aimed to complete the part-privatisation of the successor to Alitalia over the summer, but asked the two rival consortia to review their initial offers as it deemed they did not meet its goals. They have until midnight (2200 GMT) on Monday to do so. Shipping group MSC and Germany's Lufthansa are facing a rival bid led by U.S.
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Britain's accounting watchdog said on Monday it had fined auditor PwC 1.75 million pounds ($2.12 million) after it failed to properly challenge UK telecoms group BT once a half-a-billion pound fraud was discovered in BT's Italian operations, Reuters reported. BT's full-year financial statement for the year ended March 31, 2017, had to be adjusted by 513 million pounds due to the fraud, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said.
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Italy plans to approve on Thursday a new aid package worth around 14.3 billion euros ($14.5 billion) to help shield firms and families from surging energy costs and consumer prices, government officials said, Reuters reported. The scheme, one of the last major acts of outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi before a national election next month, comes on top of some 33 billion euros budgeted since January to soften the impact of sky-high electricity, gas and petrol costs.
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The Italian parliament has given its final approval to a highly contested bill to promote competition in product and services markets, required to help secure a new tranche worth 19 billion euros ($19.4 billion) of post-pandemic European funds, Reuters reported. The reform championed by the outgoing government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi has triggered protests from lobby groups, especially taxi drivers who were against opening up their sector to broader competition including from multinationals.
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Italy is preparing a new stimulus decree worth up to 13 billion euros ($13.3 billion) to help families and firms deal with a surge in electricity, gas and petrol costs, deputy Economy Minister Laura Castelli said on Monday, Reuters reported. The new scheme, which comes on top of some 33 billion euros already budgeted since January, is expected to be one of the last major acts by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who last week resigned paving the way for a snap national election on Sept. 25.
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Debt-laden Italy finds itself in markets' crosshairs again, as the prospect of a collapse in its national unity government coincides with the European Central Bank preparing to deliver its first interest rate rise in 11 years, Reuters reported. Like other indebted eurozone countries, Italy has spent the past few years when cash was cheap and plentiful trying to reduce its vulnerability to rising rates and market panic. But it is more exposed to increasing borrowing costs than it might appear, according to a Reuters review of its debt profile.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s offer to resign has sent unsettling ripples through financial markets, bringing back bad memories of Europe’s debt crisis a decade ago and complicating the European Central Bank’s job as it raises interest rates for the first time in 11 years to combat record inflation, the Associated Press reported. Draghi, a former ECB president, has pushed policies meant to keep Italy’s high levels of debt manageable and boost growth in Europe’s third-largest economy.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is expected to offer his resignation after the Five Star Movement, a key member of his coalition, went ahead with its threat to boycott a confidence vote on the government, triggering political turmoil, Bloomberg News reported. The party led by former premier Giuseppe Conte, the second-biggest group in parliament, announced in the Rome Senate that it would stay away later Thursday from the vote on an aid package for businesses and households hit by high energy prices.
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Rising interest rates in Europe are making investors worry about an old ghost haunting Italy’s banks: the “doom loop,” the Wall Street Journal reported. The European Central Bank is expected to unveil a special bond buying program later this month to shield highly indebted eurozone economies—and their banks—from rising borrowing costs. The “anti-fragmentation” program is a response to a widening of bond yields in Italy in particular and a punishing selloff in bank stocks in the eurozone’s third largest economy.
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