The Natixis-General Operation, with the merger of the savings management activities announced on January 21 last, relaunched the fears about the deceiver French economic presence in Italy. The companies have attempted to reassure politics and market on the fact that the savings are destined to remain in our country, but the “affair” is so large – we speak of a giant of 1,900 billion euros – to project a long shadow on All transalpine acquisitions. And they are wounds that reopen.
France is by far the first buyer of local companies, with over 1/5 of the whole foreign investment. A imbalance is evident: according to the latest report of the embassy of Italy in Paris, at the end of 2023 the European neighbors had spent 101 billion in direct investments in the peninsula, against the 53 committed by our companies in the ESAGON. An imbalance that no Italian government has ever officially asked to correct, despite the suspicion of one longa manus Parisian policy behind certain acquisition operations. «Telecommunications, energy and banks»: the strategic priorities of the French confirmed them Emmanuel Macron in a recent interview a Bloomberg. “Crucial sectors” underlined the president “in which there is no single market”. And precisely in those sectors the companies in Paris have long employed important spaces in Italy, without meeting too many resistance. With an exception in telephony, because when Vivendi talked Tim in Rome, recourse to the “Golden Power”, drastically limiting the powers of the reference shareholder because the TLC operator had precious infrastructures also for our defense (goals, submarine cables ). The long judicial battle that followed Bolloré came out defeated.
More or less in the same months Vivendi was also in fierce conflict with Mediaset, And then France and Italy were also at short irons for the Saint-Nazaire shipyards. Since then the tensions between the two states seemed almost disappeared. Perhaps because the French conquest has become quieter. Vivendi, in Italian telephony, was then reached by Iliad: but the group of Xavier Niel entered without the need to climb existing companies. We come to the banks: in 2006 BNL passed under French control (BNP). Then Crédit Agricola entered, noting Cariparma. Then Societé Générale. Distant times. Now the consolidation of the positions is made in small steps.
And one realizes that foreign banks (French in the first place) focused on some specific activities of which they actually took control: negotiation of the Italian public debt (foreigners the first five operators), consumer credit (paid at 50 per Cento always from foreign institutions), pension funds (still foreigners to 80 percent).
And then the energy: in the years of the great Edf clashes, the public giant of the Alps, he purchased Edison and also invested in wind and photovoltaic fields in Italy. Then, even in this third strategic axis, it proceeded without clamor. And suddenly we see a gold race in photovoltaics. Because in addition to being politically interesting it has become a lucrative asset.
Stefano Endrizzi, co-founder of Mergerscorp, a company that operates in the acquisition and merger of companies, explains it as follows: «In recent years it is easier to obtain licenses for photovoltaic fields from less than 10 MW, so that some Italian entrepreneurs get permits , make the installation and sell immediately. And foreigners (especially Swiss, German and precisely French) buy, because they have liquidity to put in an asset that guarantees income without risk ».
Mergerscorp is an investment banking company based in Wall Street and more than 700 companies in portfolio, for a value of about 14 billion. They are 60 nations companies, but there are many Italians, many more than those of other states. Endrizzi confirms to Panorama The Italian anomaly: “For ten years there has been an acceleration of the sale of companies in the country, accentuated by pandemic and current increases in energy. It is a phenomenon of which politics does not deal with, but we work with productive realities every day we detect it ». Pastifices, mechanics, aerospace, self -transport sectors, transport, calcium: everything is sold. Because our GDP is made for 90 percent by small and medium -sized enterprises (SMEs): fragile and increasingly exposed.
“There is no supply chain policy against speculative attacks,” complaining Dino Crivellari, a former Unicredit national co -director. There is no generational change and global competition forces companies to innovate but these do not find the capital to do it. So often they end up in the hands of investment funds, impoverishing the Italian entrepreneurial fabric. Being then quite small companies it becomes difficult to monitor the flow of sales and also the exit of capital from the country. In France this does not happen. Not in these terms, at least. Companies have easier access to capital, and have a relationship with policy also made of direct investments of the state: with the CDC, which corresponds to our Cassa Depositi e Prestiti but weighs double; And then the Ape (Agence Pour Les Participations de l’Etat, with participations for 180 billion in about eighty companies, 11 of which are listed); And again BPIFrance, the public investment bank for SMEs. The result is a widespread public shareholder, with variable ways but great speed of intervention, when a more or less strategic reality is threatened. Or to favor their expansion.
At the same time there are many our companies that work well with the French: there are remarkable synergies, as in the case of Stmicroelectronics, Joint Venture Italian-French Paritarian. Tensions in the semiconductors manufacturer are not between states, but with the dissatisfied shareholders of the financial results (so much so that it has now launched a class action accusing the group of having hidden the crisis). However, the two governments are evaluating the situation together. Even where the entrepreneurship of the Alps notes our companies (or vice versa) often the cohabitation works: think of luxury, Kering (Gucci) and Lvmh (Bulgari, Loro Piana, Fendi, the recent strengthening in Tod’s): not only do they not have Moved the production, but they have expanded it to Italy, making the most of our artisan “know -how”.
Between the two countries there is an almost sporting challenge, also made of strokes to the rival’s morality: learning that symbols such as Grand Marnier, Picot, Champagne Lallier and lastly the Courtvoisier (the cognac of Napoleon III) are in hands Italian (Campari) is not beautiful for the transalpines, and if it is true that they have detected the excellence of coffee machines for bar (the San Marco, passed A Seb), we on the other hand we have their favorite coffee brand (noir-lavazza cards) and also the oldest (and larger) French tea: Damnn Frères is of Illy. If you then explain that the Bolognese group Granarolo produces some of their traditional DOP cheeses such as Saint Marcellin or Saint-Félicien … is a relationship made of small and large competitions but also of a 108 billion commercial exchange (in 2023) and here there He earns Italy, with a positive balance of 18 and a half billion. Energy excluded. Two large countries, one of which, France, has a government in catatonic state but a very toned state. And structures ready to act for national interest. Which from the Italian point of view can annoy. Here now the Generali-Natixis dossier has awakened a worried attention on the strategic sectors, the banking and insurance sectors in particular: «Our real treasure are two thousand billion liquid savings: banks are very interesting for anyone who has an investment strategies, because it can channel these resources »adds Crivellari. “Their control also means being able to condition the country that needs a few tens of billions of debt emissions every month.” And it is not just the public one: even the debt of families risks becoming a serious problem soon: «Institutes are making more consumer credit than mortgages, it is a relatively small phenomenon but if they continue precariousness of work, uncertainty, low incomes Then it will increase and also create the need for a political control of this debt ».
The French presence is already extremely consolidated now. The same Monte dei Paschi di Siena who wants the command on Mediobanca (general shareholder of Generali) to counter Natixis then entrusts his management of savings to a joint venture (indeed, three) with the Francesissimo Axa. So to invest our savings we could choose a French manager. Or another French.
