Mini bonds: Lombardy leads the ranking

Despite the undeniable economic and financial shocks to which it has been subjected in recent years, the productive fabric Italian is healthy, with beyond 1,100 businesses which could emit up to 15 billion euros of minibonds without weakening their economic-financial structure. And of these, almost half could be “greens”, to support sustainability policies: 6.6 billion mini green bonds, thanks to 540 possible issuers operating in the sectors most exposed to the transitionand ecological and energetic.

Over 1,100 companies could place 15 billion euros

It is the photograph taken by Cerved Rating Agency, the Italian rating agency specialized in assessing the creditworthiness of companies and measuring the ESG performancewhich starting from the over 15 thousand non-financial companies subject to its evaluation, identified a sample adequately representative of the Italian economy in terms of sectors, geographical distribution, size, legal form and financial structure, from which it extracted the research data “The potential of the minibond market of Italian companies”.

“In a credit market dominated by banking offerings – he explains Fabrizio Negri, CEO of Cerved Rating Agency – minibonds are an excellent opportunity, because they offer issuing SMEs an additional or alternative financing instrument and stakeholders an interesting investment choice towards private companies. Furthermore, the growing attention to sustainability has also had tangible effects on the minibond market, which is becoming an important additional source for supporting the competitiveness of SMEs and encouraging their green transition: in fact, we have found a significant potential for issuing mini green bonds ”.

I minibond sThey are typically debt securities issued by small and medium-sized enterprises to diversify sources of financing and access the professional investor market, therefore, for the purposes of the investigation, CRA selected from the sample only non-financial companies with revenues ranging between 5 and 500 million euros, a to which rigid financial criteria were then applied in order to obtain subjects capable of issuing minibonds without jeopardizing their economic-financial balance.

This resulted in a shortlist of 1,133 companies, 75% of which are located in Northern Italy, which could issue minibonds for 15.2 billion euros with a maximum limit of 50 million euros each. At a geographical level, we find the North-West in the lead with 483 companies and an emission potential of 7.1 billion euros, followed by the North-East (369 companies and 5.1 billion), the Center (151 and 1.9 billion) and from the South and Islands (130 and 1.1 billion). 81% of these are companies with a turnover between 50 and 500 million euros, but the share of small businesses is also significant (19%). As regards macro-sectors, manufacturing companies stand out (69%), followed by services (11.6%) and trade (8.5%).

Regional data

Then going into detail individual regionsi, to drive the minibond ranking is Lombardywith 312 possible issuing companies e 5.06 billion euros of potential: a subset of 146 could then issue mini green bonds, for a value of 2.16 billion. Also on the podium we find Veneto, with 180 companies per
2 billion in potential emissions (100 and 1.11 billion if the green focus is considered) and Piedmont, with 144 companies for 1.7 billion (77 and 0.76 billion), followed by number of companies (136) by Emilia Romagna, which however appears
second, with 2.31 billion, for possible issues, of which 0.73 green (50 issuers). All the other regions record significantly lower numbers, below 50 units (except Tuscany): Molise and Calabria close the ranking, with only one possible broadcaster each, while things are slightly better for Sardinia, Valle d'Aosta and Basilicata, which reaches 4.

Mini green bonds

Cerved Rating Agency then dedicated a focus to mini green bonds, issued by companies that belong to the sectors most exposed to ecological and energy transition, such as construction, automotive, manufacturing activities, electricity, gas and water supply, waste management, transport and warehousing, information and communication services, real estate activities, agriculture, steel, chemicals, plastics and rubber, machinery production. This is a substantial subset of the 1,133 initial companies, i.e. 540 companies, with a potential emissions of 6.6 billion euros.

At the level geographical, the distribution is similar to that of “traditional” minibonds”: the North West boasts 238 companies and an emission potential of 3.2 billion euros, sfollowed by the North-East (175 companies and 2.1 billion euros), the Center (71 and 0.8 billion) and the South and Islands (56 and 0.4 billion). 75.7% of these are companies with a turnover between 50 and 500 million euros, but the share of small businesses is also significant (24.3%). As regards the macro-sectors, manufacturing activities stand out (69.3%) linked to the sustainable transition, followed by companies operating in the green construction and real estate sector (11.3%) and services (10.4%).