Stock & Derivative Exchanges
Official Website: Italian Exchange - Borsa Italiana
The Italian Bourse (Borsa Italiana SpA), based in Milan, is the only stock exchange currently in Italy. Originally founded in 1808 as the Borsa di commercio di Milano (Milan Stock Exchange), the exchange operated under public ownership through 1997.
In 1997, all the Italian stock exchanges were merged into the Borsa Italiana. These smaller exchanges were based in Naples, Turin, Trieste, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Rome and Palermo.
The major trading markets or segments for the Borsa Italiana include:
- MTA is the market for mid-size and large-size companies. The MTA is comprised of two segments, which are the STAR, for mid-sized companies, and the MTA International, which trades the shares of non-Italian issuers that are listed on other European markets.
- AIM Italia is the market for the equities of small and medium high-growth companies (SMEs).
- MOT is the market for Italian and foreign government debt securities, domestic and international bank-issued and corporate bonds, supranational securities and asset-backed securities.
- MTS is one of the leading electronic fixed-income trading markets in Europe. Italy is one of Europe’s largest debt markets.
- IDEM is the derivatives market.
On October 1, 2007, Borsa Italiana was merged with the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in an all-share takeover. In March 2016, the London Stock Exchange Group announced an agreement to merge in an all-stock deal with Deutsche Börse but the deal was blocked by the European Union Competition Regulator due to the concern that the combined entity would become a “de facto monopoly in the crucial area of fixed income instruments”.
On October 9, 2020, the LSE agreed to sell the Borsa Italiana to Euronext NV for €4.33 billion ($5.1 billion). The deal, contingent on regulatory approval, is expected to go through during the first six months of 2021.
