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Italy Jumps On Nationalization Bandwagon: Tax Police "Seizes" 20% Of Second Largest Domestic Insurer
At least Argentina kinda, sorta had the right idea: find an expensive foreign asset and nationalize it, impotent EU sound and fury be damned. Key word here: foreign. A few days later, the latest trade was escalation move appears to have gone viral, if with some curious, and serious, modification in the process. Minutes ago we learned that the Italian Finance police had seized a 20% stake in a heretofore unnamed firm (how does the police seize a stake? They pocket 20% of the electronic shares held in custody by the local DTCC? or they kidnap 20% of the Board of Directors? Inquiring minds want to know). We vaguely expected it would be a retaliatory move, and the firm would be based out of Latin America. No such luck. As Reuters fills in, the company "seized" is Premafin, "which controls Italy's No. 2 insurer Fondiaria-SAI as part of a judicial probe on market manipulation, the tax police and a judicial source said on Thursday."
At this point we can only say poor Italians for two reasons: 1) it appears that unlike in the US, where the SEC actively encourages market manipulation, especially if by means of High Freaks, Italians will be punished for such meddling trifles which achieve nothing but to restore some confidence in the manipulated market and 2) when you nationalize, don't, repeat do not, nationalize your own firms. Always go for the foreign ones first. Although there is some hope: "The stake in question is held directly and indirectly by two foreign trusts, the tax police said in a statement. The seizure, part of an ongoing investigation by Milan prosecutors, could complicate a planned merger of Fondiaria with peer Unipol." So ok, Italy got the nationalization part only half wrong. Good. So....first Argentina, now Italy: who is next on the nationalization bandwagon.
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Bah, We did this with AIG years ago. Italy is just behind the times, the next story will be the bailout of Fiat, who will be saved for their incredible electric car that is coming out. If they want to be cool, they need to nationalize something that Italians don't own. I suggest Goldman, or JP Morgan as great targets.
RE:..great targets...
+100
MAybe they should nationalize Mozzarela?
Damn, they do have the best mozza.....so goooood and fresh
Sorry, lost my train of thought there.....
Nationalize oil......HERE.
Okay. I agree.
Think Eric Holder is going to Texas/Louisiana/Oklahoma and pull that stunt?
Good luck with that.
Italy should nationalize the Gioconda.
The fact that France has not returned this masterpiece to the Italian people is casus belli.
+1000, but the french are just hypothicating that asset right now.
Germany views Italy the same way as the Progessives view the Gulf Coast oil patch. Use them, abuse them, let them rot in hell.
Riddle me this. Was AIG ever an independent company? Or yet another CIA financial terrorist front?
Somehow I read edible electric car...
Zoelick smells the end:
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/90951011/
Off Topic - Is that APPL jumping fronm the high dive board?
Watching, waiting we are.
Nothing to see here.
It is completely normal for the stock of "the most valuable company in the world" to have intraday moves of 3-5% every single day.
Leverage, bitches!
When the dollar ultimately crashes and gasoline prices rise faster than wages, our entire energy industry will be expropriated for the national good.
.... along with farms, water, transportation, finances, housing, medical institutions, the internet, and radio waves.
All else will be targetted by drones, courtesy of 2010 Census Bureau contractors' hand-held GPS co-ordinates.
How about the miners? I hope at this point when they nationalize them they just ring my doorbell and kick me in the balls and laugh at me too on top of what these stocks have already done.
When I found out the Canadian census was outsourced to Lockheed Martin I refused to complete it and will continue to do so. In this day and age I also found it highly attractive to have short roots and mobile assets (renting accomodation and PM savings).
Do they count you from an airplane?
I was lucky enough to move during the 2010 census, avoiding it altogether. A lady still came to my new house. "Sorry, this house was empty on Census Day. kthxbye!" She then proceed to grill my wife for "witness info" until I came back out and told her the house was empty, and she had no futher business here.
She spent the next 10 minutes in her car in my driveway, likely documenting the encounter, as well as all of our vehicle info. Next census, I'll write the number of people at the house on the front of the form, but nothing else.
I'll also have a gate up well before then.
What about home inspections for purchase or re-fi? The Feds mandate that all the interior photos be put in a central database that they control. Wonder if they are looking at your stuff, or just being ready for a raid?
Counting all the cellphone #'s + 20 % would give them a more accurate head count.
You read that as well. How about that? Two census operations, one that identifies the GPS coordinates and the other that actually counts people. 30-50 thousand drones will be in our skies next year with the GPS coordinates being transferred whenever they need to "listen" and "watch" a given citizen. Most people have no idea.
30 to 50 k drones? That's an awful lot of contrails elventy111!!11
Who's ass did you pull that number out of?
The government's. Haven't you seen any of the news about the FAA and drones?
Google is your friend. Well, not really...
High gasoline prices are starting have an impact. Enter Ireland:
Caught in commuter hell of mortgage and petrol costshttp://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/property/2012/0419/1224314920494.htm...
Free solar panels for all!
I think the U.S started the nationalization bandwagon with GM ,Citi, and, AIG. The rest of the world is just catching up.
Nope. The opposite.
Sorry I didn't go in chronological order. I'm so pissed about the Egan Jones crap I can't think straight.
In other countries, you nationalize to steal the profit for your government.
In soviet America, you nationalize to bring the losses INTO your government.
I was worried about my kids going hungry, so I took my wifes dinner and I ate it.
Somebody has to be the borrower of last resort.
I have just realized that the MADD logo looks like it could be a young Max Keiser!
Wait until 0bama uses his new power to seize oil, water and all other industries in general in the name of national interests...
We are in for a global highway (robbery) to hell.
Well since the FEDs own or control like 40%+ of the land in the USSA I think that ship has sailed many moons ago.
The title which has been properly rehypothecated to a small area in London so the USSA may use the currency that the proxy bank issues here in the USSA.
pods
yes, but obomber makes a great strawman. we wouldn't want the masses figuring out that the banks actually own everything, including the people...
London has proper title to the grand canyon.
Think Texans will roll with that?
Yeez, only thing left is to nationalize Healthcare and Energy.
brave new world indeed ...
whatchu talking about??? the company is italy-based, the accusation is that 20% is owned by their italian owners who use the trusts to evade tax. the trusts are based in the caribbean. The trusts can have it back anytime they want as long as they give proof of actually being foreign.
Who is next? America! Nationalize Egan-Jones!
Fondiaria's woes have attracted the attention of Milan prosecutors.
Salvatore Ligresti, the Sicilian patriarch who controls the group through Premafin, is being investigated for suspected market irregularities, while magistrates have requested bankruptcy proceedings for two of his holdings, which together own 20 percent of Premafin.
Under Ligresti ownership, Fondiaria, Italy's biggest car insurer, has seen its market value shrink over the last five years to 498 million euros from over 5 billion euros. In 2011 it shocked the market with a loss of more than 1 billion euros.
Some investors are angry the Ligrestis could walk away with cash from the Unipol rescue deal.
As a Unipol merger with Fondiaria would change Premafin's spots by turning it into an insurer, Premafin shareholders have a right of withdrawal instead of being diluted in the new group.
Ligresti, known as "Mr 5 percent" for his small stakes in strategic companies, received more than 40 million euros in consultancy fees from Fondiaria in 2003-2010 and was involved in real estate deals between one part of the group and another.
"Shareholders are angered at the wages the Ligrestis have paid themselves over the years. Why should you pay them for destroying value?," Deminor's Boman said.
Fondiaria's meltdown has brought into focus Italy's poor corporate governance record, where shareholder pacts and pyramid ownership schemes have long kept foreign investors at bay.
Stefano Modena, senior partner at Governance Consulting, said Italy's market transparency and shareholder protection rules had improved in recent years, but not enough.
"The problems lie elsewhere - in corporate governance and conflict of interest issues, where controlling shareholders can push through intra-group operations as Fondiaria did," he said.
And I'm sure the financial police will help the company turn a profit.
Sure.
Who knows but screwing over minority shareholders might not be acceptable - of course in the US they would probably bend over and take it again....and again........after all American investors don't mind being screwed repeatedly so long as Goldman wins...
"Fondiaria is a serial violator of regulations. It's been messing round with minorities for years and nothing has been done. Shareholders have become resigned," said Erik Bomans, partner at corporate governance activist association Deminor.
Ten years ago Mediobanca, which controls Assicurazioni Generali, Italy's biggest insurer and Fondiaria-SAI rival, helped SAI build a controlling stake in Fondiaria.
The move, essentially to stop it from falling into the hands of the powerful Agnelli family, which controls carmaker Fiat, should have triggered a mandatory bid on minorities under Italian law, but it never happened.
This time round the situation is different because under Italian law a change of control does not trigger a mandatory public tender if it qualifies as a rescue operation.
"It's not good. It's basically a deal that rewards the creditor banks rather than shareholders," a Fondiaria minority shareholder said, requesting anonymity.
"You don't need these mergers. They just saddle Fondiaria shareholders with more debt. Fondiaria needs new management. The rival bid from the funds needs to be looked at," he said.
Premafin, whose only asset is Fondiaria, has around 370 million euros of debt which would be restructured and loaded into its subsidiary.
US is going to nationalize zerohedge.com soon. There must never be a narrative contrary to the MSM cheer. Hope yall filled out your taxes correctly.
There. Is. No. Nation.
Marc Stevens is the absolute best teacher of this idea I've ever seen. Judges desperately fear him.
http://marcstevens.net/articles/more-evidence-states-are-fictions.html
Also, his book, "Adventures in Legal Land" is indispensable if you find yourself being victimized by the gang d.b.a. "The State." Inside the cover of mine he wrote the same thing you did, "There is no state!" For such a simple expression, it sure had a profound effect on me, as the blinders were suddenly lifted.
http://marcstevens.net/store/aillbook.html
US is going to nationalize zerohedge.com soon.
Do you think ZH operates from places "not in the US"?
Do you think ZH operates from places "not in the US"?
No, but it would be a good idea.
The U.S. claims the right to shutdown all .com domain names. It doesn't matter where they operate.
Didn't know that - thx for the education.
The FBI wasn't too happy when "The Father of the Internet" Jon Postel stole the Internet either. They showed up at his house and made him give it back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel
That should be obvious. I'm amazed that some people don't understand that the web can be censured at any time.
One day the government will seize 10 per cent of everyone's bank account balace so as to rcapitalse the banks and fund the government. Seizure will be new tool of governments and seizures will be the medical condition of individuals and businesses.
yep. I'm already withdrawing cash in small denominations on a monthly basis; and blowing the rest on golds and silvers.
They would do no such thing. They don't have to.
All they need to do is to keep debasing the currency that enjoys forced legal tender in the US to achieve those goals.
Like the Ether Bunny, we are all being f*cked and we don't even know it.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ether%20bunny
pods
One day the government will seize 10 per cent of everyone's bank account balance so as to recapitalse the banks and fund the government.
They have a committee working on forcibly rolling 401Ks and retirement accounts into Treasuries.
I don't have a link handy, but I'm sure you can find it if you try.
HA! Not me! I just emptied my account paying "my" property taxes.
(lady would not even look me in the eye after I asked if they had any interest in recovering the all of the filing fees that the banks have stolen from them via MERS)
When is the trend going to shift to "nationalizing" foreign gold parked within one's borders? (That'd get some temper's flaring...)
Temper's flaring? They would simply stop selling anything to the US and put huge regulatory burdens on gold trading to prove provenance to disallow the US from profiting from the theft ... which would put a huge dent in the value of gold, because regulation will decrease the ease with which gold can be traded and increase the cost.
The slim chance of a return to an international gold standard would be pretty much sunk.
GS and JPM have beaten them to it.
As soon as your supplier asks for gold or goods, his gold assets look tasty enough.
Italians engaging market manipulation?
I thought that was SOP in the EU...LOL
i'd nationalize the local JP Morgan and Gold Sach branches.
geez you guys are truly clueless
So it begins...
In better news, Botox inventories will need a massive rebuilding after all of Christine Kirschner's recent speeches and press conferences.
Subcutaneous green shoots!
Taking all folks' bank account wouldn't do it..
With 700 Trillion of Criminal Derivatives around..There is not enough
$$ on the Planet to unwind this mess..And some of tptb know this..
Hence all this can kicking...
all your stocks are belong to us,..... corzined and vaporized, who's next?
What about they seize 100% of the private Italian central bank??
E Spanola Banka's
I think Europeans have strayed from the course and the purpose ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkLkSHlSvTA&feature=fvwp&NR=1
I expected the cannabalism to start about a year ago. But, I am always early to the party.
And last week's article was about Italy's largest export - GOLD - to Switzerland.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/least-one-italian-export-soaring-gold
These NA markets are so ready to tank. How is this growth?
http://bullandbearmash.com/index/djia/weekly/
Because it's not straight down?
Well, they seized the stake...it's quite different from nationalizing....Ligresti should have been in prison from long ago....but better late than ever!
at least it wasn't FIAT, BiCheZ!
If the U.S. government nationalizes Goldman Sachs, do we get stuck with their derivative exposure?
Some day, I guess rather sooner then later there will be some sort of "response", i'd love to see that one! :))
I'd bet they nationalized the 20% held by private investors who can't do anything about it. The stock held by institutions they probably avoided.
Market manipulation? What country does that and doesn't get away with it?i think they are just angry that they had competition
As opposed to the US, where market manipulation is treated like a traffic ticket with a small fine and a slap on the wrist.
In the long run every manipulation fails and everything trend to its true value. That is why i buy precious metals and and trade cfd's on various commodities.
Well, why not - I mean, these governments (and the banks who own them) have done such a bang-up job managing the public economy, why don't we just let them manage the private economy as well?
What could go wrong?
Italy-bashers should not underestimate the burgeoning love affair between the Italians and the Chinese.
As just two examples - and there are several others - CSR is slated to win the rail units Finmecchanica, Italy's GE, is selling. And Eni has been granted various South China Sea leases other international integrated oils were furiously vying for, making E the preferred partner of CNOOC going forward.
I fully expect wealthy Chinese industrialists to make Italy their European home base, the way Latin Americans saved Miami.
This is not facetious. I truly believe it's already happening.
I think they meant steak...steak Florentine..yummy Huge porterhouse cooked over wood fire, served on bed of arugula aka rocket, drizzled with fresh lemon..
Mamma Mia... Nooo!!!
"Berlusconi probed for inducing sex-party witness to lie"
19 April, 2012
http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2012/04/19/Berlusconi-pr...
Anal?
Unlubed?
Straight out of an Ayn Ryan novel.
Nationalize the technocrats!
Tyler: This statement is full of shit ~ "At least Argentina kinda, sorta had the right idea: find an expensive foreign asset and nationalize it."
YPF was and is and will be the national oil and gas company of Argentina. Controlling interest in YPF was sold for nada by that WB/IMF/EEUU-owned fucking traitor Menem (and his Yankee-indoctrinated minister of the economy, Domingo Cavallo.) Why nada? Because Repsol paid almost nada for YPF, using YPF's assets and revenues to finance this wholesale plunder.
This is the same IMF's modus operandi for Greece, Spain, Italy, etc., i.e., bankrupt the target country, rich with resources and/or real assets, with unpayable loans, then cause that country to default, and than "buy" their the resources and real assets for pennies on the dollar.
Get your facts straight!
BTW, this PressTV interview give a balanced view of this whole YPF/Repsol affair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkCdpG5RgkE
so are we to believe that suddenly italy is becoming self-determined.? judging by the overt control succesfully levered upon italy...in the way of putting in an appointed president empowered to push the financial industrial interests of the european financial government nexus....
I don't care what the propandizing news says about what 'nominally' happened. its a story for public consumption/digestion. the real story is secret. the 'nationalization' was accomplished either by
1) this company being 'fed to the dogs' of government by the even more powerful financial interests that have dominated italy so far
2) this company being directly looted and 'set up' for more looting ( that is the 'nationalization' will result in some of the spoils being delivered directly to the financial interests of government. possilby the mere act of 'nationalization' destroyed debt that this company was owed by the big interests. who knows.
and somehow, i wouldn't be surprised if the list of counterparties included some of the very interests that pushed through the 'reforms' that italy has so far experienced in the name of devluaing the euro and keeping the debt strucutre nominally in tact.
Idiot comments. I'm Italian and I am aware Italy is a fa far away country in the US empire, so post accurate information on the country is not a priority....nobody wants to nationalise the 2nd Italin insurer. unfortunatley, the fact is the owner (Ligresti family) is synonimous of mafia in Italy and the judicial probe underway is proving this wide spread feeling wasn't wrong at all. Good if Mialn prosecutors seize their holdings !!! RIVOLUZIONE !