The strategic role of innovative finance and the “Alternative Capital Market” (MAC) for business succession in Italian family firms

This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of two economic instruments used to sup-port business succession for family firms in Italy: private equity and the MAC (Alter-native Capital Market). Desk analysis (national database figures) and field analysis (interviews collected from a sample of banks and companies) have yielded several significant results: data from the Private Equity Monitor indicate that in Italy, between 2000 and 2007, over 600 private equity operations were carried out; of these, 66% were represented by buy-out operations while replacement capital financing did not exceed 5%. These data suggest that the creation of an Italian MAC could stimulate replacement capital operations. On the basis of the above results, the following conclusions can be deduced: the opening-up of the corporate structure to new inves-tors can in general be successfully supported through private equity operations; the same positive results are not recorded for operations performed using the MAC; the MAC will only be able to play a strategic role in this context when it is successfully launched and becomes more widely diffused; institutional investors, as the only enti-ties qualified to purchase the issued shares, have to prove that they are willing to be the leading actors in the evolution of the MAC.