Italian Investors May Bid for LSE Unit, Corriere Reports

(Bloomberg) --

A group of Italian investors may bid for London Stock Exchange Group Plc's Borsa Italiana unit, amid government pressure to keep an asset that's considered strategic in “Italian hands,” Corriere della Sera reported.

The potential investors include banks, Italy's state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, insurance firms and state-backed funds such as Fondo Strategico Italiano and F2i SGR SpA, the newspaper said, without saying where it got the information.

“It's important for our country to decide the fate of Borsa Italiana, avoid an asset dissolution and gain back control of it,” Corriere quoted Copasir Chairman Raffaele Volpi as saying. Copasir is an Italian parliamentary committee that oversees intelligence services.

LSE hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley as advisers on the sale of Borsa Italiana, Il Sole 24 Ore reported Saturday, without saying where it got the information. The unit may be worth as much as 4 billion euros ($4.7 billion), it said.

LSE announced on Friday it's started talks to sell part or potentially all of Borsa Italiana to satisfy European regulators examining its blockbuster deal for Refinitiv.

READ: LSE in Talks to Sell Borsa Italiana to Close Refinitiv Deal (2)

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