The management of troubled Italian lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA is considering raising up to €5 billion in a share sale, instead of the €3 billion previously planned, people familiar with the matter said Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The decision will need to be first approved by a board of directors in a vote that is likely to take place next week, and then it will need to be submitted for approval to the bank's shareholders. A spokesman for Monte dei Paschi declined to comment.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi cut the government’s forecast for economic growth and renewed his promise to slash benefits for top civil servants, saying the working poor are shouldering too much of the pain, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product will expand 0.8 percent this year, Renzi said late yesterday in a news conference in Rome after his cabinet approved his multi-year budget plan. That compares with the 1 percent growth projected in September by Renzi’s predecessor, Enrico Letta. Italy’s GDP contracted 1.9 percent last year, the second decline in a row.

Italy's banks will not require any state funds as a result of the European Central Bank's stress tests this year on euro zone banks, the head of Italy's banking association ABI has told a German newspaper, Reuters reported. The ECB is putting the euro zone's 128 largest banks through a painstaking review of their loan books before becoming their supervisor in November, in a bid to force them to come clean on hidden losses and restore investors' trust in the sector.

Famed Italian automotive styling house Bertone has confirmed it has entered court bankruptcy proceedings after mounting debts forced it to send staff home. “The problem is many debts and very high costs. At the moment everything is blocked,” a spokesperson told The Telegraph. “People haven’t been coming to work for a month and a half now.” The fate of the Turin-based company will be known by the end of April, according to the spokesperson. A court will either declare that the company will close for good or reveal the name of the most suitable buyer.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi unveiled plans to make €10 billion ($13.9 billion) in cuts to payroll taxes and a further €2.4 billion in business-tax cuts, his first effort to deliver on promises to overhaul Italy's sclerotic economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Renzi also pledged on Wednesday to pay €68 billion in overdue bills by the state by the summer, a move that has helped lift the economy in other Southern European countries such as Spain. Mr. Renzi, however, didn't immediately provide details on how the arrears payments would be financed.

European Union authorities on Wednesday said Italy's economic woes require strict monitoring and "strong policy action," putting more pressure on Rome to cut its government budget deficit amid record unemployment, The Wall Street Journal reported. But officials at the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, declined to take a similar step for Germany because of its large current-account surplus, the broadest measure of a country's trade and financial flows with the rest of the world. The U.S.

Shareholders in Italy's Seat Pagine Gialle gave the go ahead on Tuesday for a plan aimed at relaunching the heavily indebted Italian yellow pages publisher, allowing creditors to take control of the struggling company, Reuters reported. Measures voted by shareholders include a near 20 million euro cash call reserved for creditors that will see current investors diluted to just 0.25 percent of capital. Royal Bank of Scotland and bondholders will forego debt of around 650 million euros ($893 million) and 837 million euros respectively to become the new owners of the company.

Italy's new government approved a new decree Friday aimed at staving off a default by the city of Rome while insisting that the capital must still seek ways to curb its perennial deficit, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new decree, which must be approved by parliament, offers €575 million ($788.32 million) in cash, which will cover more than half the capital's 2013 shortfall. That is more than the amount pledged by the previous government's so-called "Save Rome" decree, which languished in parliament until being withdrawn earlier this week due to a parliamentary filibuster.

When Michele Alessi saw orders drop at his namesake kitchenware designer he paid his staff to sweep streets and prune trees rather than have them stay home tapping a state-backed layoff fund, Bloomberg News reported. Alessi, 63, whose company makes humorous designer kitchen tools like a Philippe Starck-sketched juicer in the form of a giant spider, takes a dim view of the employer tax-funded layoff program because “it sends the wrong message,” he said in an interview in Milan on Jan. 22.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, the bailed-out Italian bank, will delay a 3 billion-euro ($4.1 billion) stock sale until at least May from the first quarter after its biggest shareholder demanded a postponement, Bloomberg News reported. The bank’s investors backed the delayed rights offer at an extraordinary shareholder meeting in Siena on Dec. 28, according to Monte Paschi Chairman Alessandro Profumo. The vote ends a clash between the lender and its main shareholder over the timing of the offering.