First Report by the Observatory on SMEs and Capital Markets

The First Report by the Observatory on SMEs and Capital Markets highlights that Italian SMEs increasingly see capital markets as an opportunity for growth and innovation, yet many struggle to access them due to cultural, organizational, and size-related barriers. Developed by Consob and CeTIF at Università Cattolica, the study is based on a representative sample of around 120,000 firms and confirms that Italy’s economy is dominated by very small enterprises, for which stock market listing implies a significant shift in governance and business culture.

The report also shows that listed SMEs remain a very small share of the total and tend to be larger, more technology-oriented, and already competitive. Manufacturing continues to be the backbone of the system, while Lombardy alone accounts for over 5% of the SMEs analyzed. In many cases, access to capital markets reflects pre-existing scale and structure rather than acting as a primary driver of growth.

Between 2023 and the first half of 2025, 62 SMEs entered the stock market while 86 exited, leading to a net loss of more than EUR 44 billion in market capitalization. Low liquidity, unsatisfactory valuations, and competition from private equity are the main drivers of delistings, although the report identifies potential recovery factors, including renewed flows into Individual Savings Plans, the launch of the Strategic Indirect National Fund from 2026, lower interest rates, and expectations of improved profitability.

Read more here: https://www.consob.it/documents/d/area-pubblica/pmi-mc_2026