Market asset servicing – Italy
Income collection
| Market Record date | Ex-date | Basis for entitlement | Standard interest calculation rule | |
| Dividend payment | Payment date -1 | Payment date -2 | Security position on Record date | Not applicable |
| Coupon payment | Payment date -1 | Payment date -2 | Security position on Record date | Actual/Actual |
Equities
Companies usually pay one annual dividend.
Dividends on all listed Italian equities are paid to the Italian custodian banks gross of tax on the third business day after ex-date through the domestic cash clearing system with the funds value dated today.
Debt securities
Coupons on bonds are paid annually, semi-annually or quarterly.
Interest on corporate bonds is paid upon issuance of payment orders by Monte Titoli to the appointed paying agents, on the basis of the positions held at the centralised depository.
Interest deriving from government bonds is paid via Banca d’Italia and is included in the cash-clearing of the overnight settlement cycle at Monte Titoli. Cash deriving from interest and redemption payments on government bonds is available at 07:00 on payment date.
Corporate actions
Corporate action announcements are published in the major Italian newspapers and via Monte Titoli, who are notified by the issuers directly of any outstanding corporate event on centralised securities.
Most common corporate events
The most common corporate actions in the Italian market are splits, bonus issues, capital increases/ decreases, mergers, spin-offs, exchange offers, exercises of warrants, conversions of bonds, tender offers.
Organisation of AGM/EGMs
Companies must officially announce AGMs and EGMs forty days before the respective meeting date. The day after the announcement, the event is reported by the Official Gazette and by Consiglio di Borsa.
AGMs must usually be called by the end of April each year, in order to approve the financial statement of the company. Apart from this specific point, an AGM can be called in any month of the year.
Proxy voting services
Italian law has historically prohibited credit institutions from voting in shareholders meetings on behalf of others. Therefore, banks that wanted to offer a proxy voting service to their clients had to employ a proxy agent.
With the corporate governance regulations for the Italian Financial Markets issued in late February 1998, proxy voting has been liberalised and, from 1 July 1998, Italian credit institutions can represent shareholders in company meetings.
In accordance with the Italian Civil Code, shares must be blocked by the custodian at least 5 days before the first call of a shareholders meeting.
Physical presence is required for most of the meetings, with the exception of privatised companies, which, by law, must make available postal voting facilities.
Please be advised that, as per the SHRD II regulation, holders will be required to provide the beneficial owner Tax ID/Unique National Registration number (URN), beneficial owner address, including the beneficial owner email address, and the legal entities code (LEI) when instructing.
Other market specifics
- Securities availability
All new entitlements resulting from corporate actions are immediately available at the date established by the issuer or by the Italian CSD (Monte Titoli). - Rights trading
Rights resulting from corporate events are usually listed on the Italian Stock Exchange.
Transaction management rules
Please refer to the Transaction management rules - Italy.