Hedge fund activism in Italy

Recent studies have analysed hedge fund activism in the US and in the UK, where there is plenty of episodic evidence on the issue; but what about civil law jurisdictions like Italy: are there significant differences between hedge fund activism in, say, the US and in Italy? The backgrounds are certainly different in many respects; in particular: (i) corporate ownwership is dispersed in the US, while concentrated in Italy; and (ii) the regulatory frameworks show significant dissimilarities. The present article tries to assess—through a case analysis—whether the above-mentioned differences affect hedge fund activism in Italy by making it significantly different from its US counterpart with regard to: (i) the choice of targets by activist hedge funds; (ii) the kind of actions hedge funds can deploy vis-à-vis Italian companies; (iii) the probability of success of said actions; and (iv) the potential role of activist hedge funds operating in Italy in terms of informed shareholder monitoring.