Italian listed companies: employee share ownership scheme struggles to be adopted

In Europe, the phenomenon of employee share ownership has been way widespread, especially in Germany and France. According to the latest data from the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership, in 2021 3.13% of the capital of the main companies was controlled by employees, for a record total of 433 billion euros.

«In Italy, it is a phenomenon not yet developed, and in many cases requires a pay-back in cash, not in shares,” comments Fabio Bianconi, Managing Director at Morrow Sodali in this article published by Affari&Finanza. “But the institutional investors’ opinion is very positive as they recognize a goal alignment with the market's best practices. However, there are still some issues directly related to the operational plans, that need to be addressed, as the administrative costs are quite high for the companies.”

The less positive fact is that in recent years the number of employees involved has decreased, and is now at its lowest level, with a membership rate of 19.4% against 23% in 2007. Employee share ownership in Italy has also dropped to just over 110 thousand in the last decade.

Read the full article here (in Italian).