(Finance) – The delistings from Piazza Affari have caused a significant loss of capitalization for the Milan Stock Exchange in recent years. This trend should not be surprising and should be read together with another phenomenon, this positive one, which is the acceleration of the use of the stock market to grow by SMEs, according to Salvatore Guardino, Managing Director of Mediobanca and at the helm of the Corporate Broking team. “The large liquidity in the market inevitably leads to delistings, so many companies choose to grow from delisted to have dynamics a little different from those of the stock market. This will continue because there is a lot of liquidity around and rates are still very lowfor which we are trying to invest “, Guardino told Finance, on the sidelines of the Investor Conference” Mid & Small in London 2022 “, organized by Virgilio IR and Mediobanca.
“L’entry of SMEs into the markets is an important growth factorbecause they are finally emerging from the realities of the Italian small and medium-sized enterprise that we have all always talked about and which, however, thanks to the scholarship they begin to have that visibility they did not have before – he added – Furthermore, they were the prerogative of a few while today anyone can go and check the sectors and what the companies do “.
The potential of these companies becomes visible to international investors thanks also to events such as the one that took place this week in London, in which 34 companies listed on Piazza Affari met 42 international investment houses. “The closures have clearly caused a stop in physical contact with investors, because everyone at home has had to deal with the pandemic – explained the Managing Director of Mediobanca – This situation has created a depersonalization among entrepreneurs and investors, which was solved thanks also to the sophistication of the systems, because the video calls were an important boon. This is a path that inevitably would have come, but perhaps in 10 years, and instead there has been an acceleration due to the covid for which many have used these systems to speed up a bit all the time for any type of eventboth with investors and internally, for example with the Board of Directors “.
According to Guardino, forward-looking entrepreneurs have used the two years of Covid-19 to settle unresolved issues and strengthen themselves: “Many companies came to the pandemic unprepared, because they aimed only at invoicing, looking to the future and not realizing that there is inside them. they were problems and things to fix.The pandemic was somehow useful to be able to rebuild those pieces inside companies which, however, had a bit ‘left aside. This is the value that serious entrepreneurs have managed to bring home from this situation “.
Looking at the companies in the Piazza Affari with the most growth opportunities, the banker immediately thinks “al tech sectorwhich is now so much aboutartificial intelligence. This is becoming an integral part not only of tech companies, but also of industries that seem trivially non-tech. Technology reigns supreme in all activities and in all product sectors, and therefore tech is certainly the future “.
Mediobanca, as the country’s leading investment bank, continues to support companies in their listing process and in their relationships with the international financial community. However, the prerequisite is always to believe in the company you are working with. “When we approach an entrepreneur who has a company and we believe he may be able to follow a path of growth, our goal is to accompany him step by step – pointed out Guardino – However, we must first of all we must be the first to believe in that society and accompany it in a growth path that is certainly useful to society, but also to us who follow it “.