Italian Stock Exchange

The Borsa di commercio di Milano (Milan Stock Exchange) was established by Eugène de Beauharnais, viceroy of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, through decrees dated 16 January and 6 February 1808. It overtook the historically poorly regulated Borsa di Genova, later becoming the Italy's main stock exchange after the Panic of 1907.

It operated under public ownership until 1998, when it was privatized.

In 1997, all the Italian stocks were merged. Before that year, other smaller stocks exchanges were based in Naples, Turin, Trieste, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Rome, and Palermo. In 1991, the electronic exchanges were approved, and in 1994, the market with grids (A, B, C) was abolished. In Milan were also the currencies exchange rates fixing and the commodities fixing.

On 1 October 2007, Borsa Italiana was merged with the London Stock Exchange in an all-share takeover, thus becoming part of the London Stock Exchange Group. In March 2016, the London Stock Exchange Group announced the agreement to merge in an all-stock deal with Deutsche Borse, but was subsequently blocked by the EU Competition Regulator.

On 18 September 2020, the London Stock Exchange Group entered into exclusive talks to sell the Italian Bourse to Euronext. On 29 April 2021, following the entry of CDP Equity and Intesa San Paolo (Italian institutional investors) as shareholders of Euronext, the European group assumed control of the company. Its weight on the total Italian economy is growing: the overall capitalization of listed companies in December 2021 stood at 757 billion (equal to 43.1% of GDP), up by 24.7% compared to 2020.

Operations

Borsa Italiana acts as a market management firm operating with autonomy and flexibility. It organises and manages the domestic stock market along with Italian and international brokers through a fully electronic trading system. Among its leading tasks, Borsa Italiana supervises listed companies, defining rules for admission and listings and supervising transaction activities.

Markets

Major trading markets for Borsa Italiana are:

MTA, the leading equity market, which is devoted to mid and large-size companies. It includes two segments: STAR, for mid-sized firms, and MTA International, on which shares from non-Italian issuers already listed on other European markets are traded;

AIM Italia, which collects stocks by small and medium high-growth companies;