Italy

As Spain became the fourth euro zone country to accept an international bailout, investors turned their nervous gaze Monday to Italy, selling Italian stocks and bonds on worries that Rome could be the next victim of Europe’s financial infection, the International Herald Tribune reported. Italian officials are now privately expressing concern that even a €100 billion, or $125 billion, bailout for Spanish banks may not stop the troubles from spreading.

Italian prosecutors have widened a probe into the family group that controls troubled insurer Fondiaria-SAI, sources said on Tuesday, in a move that could complicate plans to rescue Fondiaria through a merger with peer Unipol, Reuters reported. Milan prosecutor Luigi Orsi launched a probe last year into alleged market irregularities carried out by Salvatore Ligresti, the patriarch of the family controlling Fondiaria.

Lucchini group has sold its key foundry, Bari Fonderie Meridionali (BFM), to the Czech DT - Vyhybkarna a Strojirna AS, as part of Lucchini's debt restructuring plan, the Italian steelmaker said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Lucchini, owned by Russia's Severstal and Severstal's owner Alexei Mordashov, reached a deal with shareholders and creditor banks in December, to restructure Lucchini's 720 million euro ($960.41 million) debt pile. The debt agreement is widely seen as paving the way for a potential sale of the debt-burdened Italian steelmaker to a third party.

Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti will press ahead with efforts to revise labor laws this week, amid fresh warnings that the three-year-old European debt crisis is far from over, Bloomberg reported. Monti will lead talks with unions and employers in a final round of negotiations beginning Monday. Decision makers meanwhile warned against complacency after delivery of the final element of Greece’s 130 billion-euro ($171 billion) bailout package and the completion of the world’s largest sovereign-debt restructuring last week.

Italy's successful government bond sale Wednesday added new evidence that investors have begun to give Italy better chances of avoiding a fiscal crisis than Spain, another big euro-zone economy that has been seen at risk of needing a Greek-style bailout, The Wall Street Journal reported. Italy comfortably sold the maximum targeted €6 billion ($7.8 billion) in government bonds with maturities of three and seven years. It also did so at lower cost, with the yields on both bonds falling significantly from previous auctions of similar maturities.

Jeweller Mattia Cielo opened his exclusive boutique on top Italian luxury street Via Montenapoleone last October, only to see the flow of clients peter out after the government curbed the use of cash. So when Rome bowed to pressure and scrapped the 1,000-euro ($1,300) limit on cash use by foreigners after only eight weeks, Cielo uncorked a bottle of champagne in celebration.

Seat Pagine Gialle SpA (PG), Italy’s largest phone-book publisher, said its debt restructuring plan won the backing of more than 97 percent of senior bondholders, the last class of creditors required to approve the proposal, Bloomberg reported. Senior bondholders now have to “formally” give their consent to the plan at a meeting convened for March 29 or 30, the Turin, Italy-based company said in a statement today. The plan has already been endorsed by more than the required threshold of junior noteholders and senior lenders, it said.

Italian yellow pages company Seat Pagine Gialle said on Friday it had won the support of more than 75 percent of its senior creditors and Lighthouse bondholders, paving the way for a debt restructuring deal, Reuters reported. Shares in the Turin-based company had leapt 19.5 percent on Friday, as investors took the view that a deal to avoid bankruptcy protection was in sight. Seat has defaulted twice on its debt obligations in the last few months and postponed several times the deadline to reach a final agreement. The latest deadline is March 7.

Pininfarina, which in tough markets has downsized from a coachwork maker for high-end sports cars to focus on its automotive design business, said it had reached a debt restructuring deal with banks after long-running talks, Reuters reported. The Italian company, famous for designs including the Ferrari FF and Maserati Gran Turismo, will complete a 182.6 million-euro ($239.8 million) debt restructuring deal with 13 creditor banks by the end of March, Chief Executive Silvio Pietro Angori told shareholders on Wednesday.

Italy's Pininfarina family is set to lose control of the eponymous car design company as lengthy debt restructuring talks head toward the finish line, people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Pininfarina, designer of dream cars like the Ferrari FF, posted a 16.9 million euros loss in the first nine months of 2011 after closing its manufacturing operations to re-invent itself as a smaller niche design player.