On 1 June 2017, Borsa Italiana S.p.A., the managing company of the Italian stock exchange, issued notice No. 11445 (the "Notice No. 11445"), with a view to clarifying the application of the rules concerning issuers incorporated under foreign law.
In particular, in the case of issuers incorporated under foreign law, Borsa Italiana S.p.A., in the process of assessing the sufficient distribution requirements for the purposes of admission to listing, will apply the relevant thresholds provided by local legislation applicable to such issuers in compliance with Directive 2013/50/EU on the harmonisation of transparency requirements.
With Notice No. 11445, Borsa Italiana S.p.A. clarified that, for purposes of calculating the sufficient distribution necessary to satisfy the free float requirement for admission to trading (which shall be presumed to exist where shares representing at least 25% of the capital represented by shares of the same class are distributed among professional as well as non-professional investors), the shareholding held by institutional investors, such as collective investment undertakings, pension funds and social security institutions, is generally taken into account, except for shareholding greater than 10% of the total relevant shareholding.
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