Companies established in another EU Member State may provide investment services and activities (including asset and portfolio management services) in Italy under the European passport regime by establishing a branch or also under the regime of the freedom to provide services in the EU. In this case, the legislation of the home country shall generally apply.
However, lessened fulfillments shall be carried out. In particular, the establishment of a first branch or the provision of services under the regime of the freedom to provide services in the EU must be preceded by a communication to CONSOB submitted by the competent authority of the Member State where the company is established. In case a branch is established, the requesting company can start providing the relevant investment services/activities starting from 2 months following the notification being made.
Economic conditions
Market size for asset and portfolio management services and biggest companies in this business area
The local market of Asset and Portfolio management is relatively small if compared to other European Countries. It has however been increasing over last years.
According to the last Report by Assogestioni, the Italian industry’s association, the assets under management by local increased significantly in the first half of 2024, due to a positive financial markets performance, while this increase reduced pace at the end of the year..
The biggest players operate in the real estate and UCITS sectors, while only a few local firms do business in the private equity and hedge funds fields. New asset classes are also rising, due the economic and regulatory contexts (see below).
Asset and Portfolio management companies are normally held by local banking groups. Due to a number of takeover bids started in the banking sectors in the second half of 2024, also owing to the so called “Danish Compromise” which is supposed to result in banks freeing-up capital if they hold asset management companies via insurance subsidiaries, the main open-ended funds company, ANIMA, was targeted by UniCredit (the 2nd largest bank) through the takeover of BANCOMAT’s BPM (a prominent banking group, close to controlling ANIMA)..
Additional comments regarding the economic situation for asset and portfolio management services or what FinTech’s must be aware of in this business area
Due to distressed economic conditions and tightened prudential requirements, local credit institutions are increasingly selling off non-performing and “unlikely to pay” loans (the so called, respectively, “NPLs” and “UTPs”). Those assets are typically purchased by local and foreign asset managers, often by means of securitization transactions, which is resulting in a significant local secondary market for those asset classes.
Also, in the real estate sector especially, in 2024 continued the trend towards tokenized securitization transactions.