020919 star londra

The companies belonging to the STAR segment (the high profile share segment of Borsa Italiana/Italian Exchange) will meet the international financial community on 20th September in London.

The meeting has been arranged by Borsa Italiana and will allow 28 STAR companies (Amga, Astaldi, Brembo, Cembre, Cementir, Cremonini, CSP International, Ducati Motor Holding, ERG, Gefran, Giacomelli, Graniti Fiandre, IMA, Interpump, Irce, Jolly Hotels, La Doria, Manuli Rubber Industries, Mariella Burani, Meliorbanca, Mirato, Negri Bossi, Reno De Medici, Sabaf, Saeco International, Saes Getters, Stefanel, Targetti Sankey) to present their interim results to the financial community.

Following the introduction speech by Borsa Italiana's CEO Massimo Capuano, three parallel slide show-sessions are scheduled as well as more than 140 one to one meetings involving the STAR companies, financial analysts and institutional investors.

The STAR companies will also be showing their products at an exibition during the day.

The event, which is being held at the Thistle Tower Hotel, has been organised thanks to the support of the Italian Embassy in London and is sponsored by Abaxbank, Banca Akros, Banca IMI and UBM.

Launched in April 2001, the STAR segment counted with 20 companies; today it counts 40.

During its first 18 months, STAR has achieved a constant positive growth trend: by the end of August 2002, the capitalisation rose to €7.9 billion with a monthly turnover of €215 million.

During 2002 the MIBSTAR index performed better than other European small cap indices (+21% vs FTSE SMALL CAP from LSE, +11.52 vs SMAX from Deutsche Börse and + 6.37% vs Next Prime Index from Euronext) and also better than the general MIB index of Borsa Italiana.

Among the 50 best performing companies on Borsa Italiana in 2002, 11 belong to the STAR segment rising from 12% up to 39%.

Free float, Corporate Governance and transparency are the peculiarities of the STAR segment. In particular, the 40 companies have a higher than average free float if compared with the STAR requirements of 35% free float for IPOs and 20% free float for companies already listed in other market segments. Nine of them have a free float between 20% and 30%, seven between 30% and 35%, twelve between 35% and 40%, six between 40% and 50% and six above 50%.

As far as the Corporate Governance issues are concerned, 54% of the companies counts a number of independent directors higher than the minimum requirement; the internal control committees exclusively include independent and non-executive members; 50% of the STAR companies has a stock option plan whereas the other 50% has adopted remuneration systems with incentives.

The London STAR Event and the February Y2001 results-presentation organised by Borsa Italiana in Milan are two of the meetings aimed at increasing the visibility of the STAR companies in Europe like the ones organised in Dublin, Edinburgh, London Madrid and Paris which were run in co-operation with primary Italian and international brokers.

These transparency efforts have resulted in the extensive coverage of more than 700 equity researches published by 37 brokers with an average of 15 researches for each company.

Milan, 19 September 2002