Analysis over inbound cross-border M&A over Italian firms with a turnover between 50mln and 500mln

In Italy, over the last years, cross-border mergers and acquisitions have been considered more as a viable solution to reach the companies’ long-term goals and not just as a threat to their businesses. Furthermore, other favourable conditions gave momentum to this form of internationalization, among which the technological progress, the globalization, the abundant liquidity among others. Considering the increasing spread around the world, many scholars provided different interesting studies on the nature, direction and determinants of this phenomenon. However, inbound cross-border M&As on Italy have not been largely investigated by researchers, which have mainly focused on US or Asian based transactions. In the present paper, I analyse the entrance of a foreign investor on the target Italian companies looking for eventual pattern or behaviour of the foreign investors. It is based on a sample of 254 cross border acquisitions performed between the first of January 2013 and the 31 of December 2016 on Italian companies with annual turnover 50 - 500 million euros. The evidence proved the increase of inbound cross-border M&A also for SME, which is an odd phenomenon for a country like Italy. Given that Italian business, in general, are adverse to involvement of external investors, the greater openness to other investors could be a key to convince other investors in entering into business with other firms. Observing where the deal took place, it is a further remark on how much our countries proceeding at different pace. Meanwhile northern regions proceed at full pace, southern regions seems to not be a favourable place where companies can grow and attract foreign investors. Lastly, firms with a turnover between €50mln and €500mln appears to have different multiples than the average multiples registered by all the Italian firms in the market.

Anche in Italia negli ultimi anni le fusioni e le acquisizioni cross-border sono diventate sempre più frequenti ed hanno cominciato a rappresentare un’alternativa alle aziende desiderose di crescere ed espandersi. Queste forme di internazionalizzazione sono state incentivate anche da circostanze particolarmente favorevoli, tra cui lo sviluppo tecnologico, la globalizzazione e l’abbondante liquidità fornita dalle banche centrali. Date le caratteristiche di questo fenomeno, le fusioni e acquisizioni cross-border sono state largamente studiate dagli esperti, concentrati solamente su transazioni aventi come soggetti aziende statunitensi o asiatiche. Visto che alcuni, tra cui l’Italia, non sono ancora state propriamente investigatela tesi si propone di analizzare gli ingressi di un soci straniero in aziende italiane. Lo studio è stato svolto prendendo un campione di 254 acquisizioni cross-border effettuate tra il 1 ° gennaio 2013 e il 31 dicembre 2016 su società italiane con fatturato compreso tra i 50-500 milioni di euro. Lo studio ha evidenziato come l’italia proceda ancora a due velocità, e la crescent aperture delle aziende a soggetti esteri