Corporate ownership and shareholder activism: The case of Italy

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Abstract

Over the last few years, shareholder activism has gained relevance, with new players increasingly looking to get involved in corporate influence and control. Born in America in the 1980s, with corporate raiders, the act of giving a voice to shareholders has spread from the United States to Europe. The aim of this research is to map this trend in the Italian territory, understanding the major current regulations, the biggest players involved, the target companies, the most frequently required objectives, and the overall success rate of such requests compared to other European countries’ neighbours. An analysis of the differences in terms of legal framework and minorities protection is provided as part of this paper, to give the reader the theoretical underpinnings for the subsequent analysis. Considerations on Italian activism follow, from the interpretation of data retrieved from Activistmonitor and Factiva that helped creating a database of 534 analyses of open and closed campaigning by activists throughout the European region since 2010. Italy turns out to be the fifth country in Europe per number of campaigns, with a few large international hedge funds and several smaller niche players. Campaigns tend to target mid and large capitalisation companies, mainly asking for changes in representation boards and having a success rate of over 50%. These findings suggest potential political implications for a successful Italian recovery in the post-COVID era. Further research on this topic and how activism impacts the performance of Italian firms would be invaluable.

Keywords: Corporate Control, Corporate Governance, Shareholders, Target Firm, Commercial Law, Corporate Regulation, Corporation Law, Hedge Funds

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — G.G. and M.V.V.; Methodology — G.G. and M.V.V.; Formal Analysis — G.G. and M.V.V.; Investigation — G.G. and M.V.V.; Writing — G.G. and M.V.V.; Supervision — G.G. and M.V.V.; Project Administration — G.G. and M.V.V.; Funding Acquisition — G.G. and M.V.V.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements: Authors would like to acknowledge and thanks Dr. Stefano Sardo for his precious suggestions and the importance of his support in order to improve the overall quality of this work.

JEL Classification: G340, K220

Received: 18.08.2021
Accepted: 22.10.2021
Published online: 25.10.2021

How to cite this paper: Gigante, G., & Venezia, M. V. (2021). Corporate ownership and shareholder activism: The case of Italy. Corporate Ownership & Control, 19(1), 159–168. https://doi.org/10.22495/cocv19i1art12