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Italy's national postal service makes tepid debut at Milan stock exchange

Xinhua, October 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

Shares in Poste Italiane, Italy's national postal service, closed at 6.7 euros (7.4 U.S. dollars), lower than the level set for the flotation, after making its stock market debut on Tuesday.

At 10:20 a.m. (0920 GMT) Poste Italiane was trading at 6.75 euros, the final price of its initial public offering (IPO). The share price shot up by 2.3 percent to 6.94 euros but quickly dropped back to the level set for the flotation.

Poste Italiane CEO Francesco Caio said on Tuesday that the partial sale of the Rome-based group, Italy's largest privatization in more than a decade, was a historic step for the company and hopefully for the country too.

The partial sale of up to 40 percent by Poste Italiane's sole shareholder, the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance, was this year's largest IPO in Europe. The global offering related to up to 453 million ordinary shares, representing 34.7 percent of the company's share capital.

The privatization process was carried out through an offering comprising a public offering to retail investors in Italy and employees of the company and its subsidiaries, and an international offering to institutional investors in Italy and abroad representing 70 percent of the global offering.

Poste Italiane plans to distribute at least 80 percent of its operating 2015-2016 profits as dividends. Caio has underlined that the sale will "open up the privatization window after a long freeze" and contribute to Italy's modernization.

With 33 million clients, Poste Italiane, which has a banking and financial services arm, is considered Italy's largest infrastructure network, providing postal logistics, investment, payment, insurance and digital communication services.

In the first half of 2015, total revenues of Poste Italiane, including insurance premiums, grew to 16 billion euros, up 7 percent on the previous year. Net profit reached 435 million euros, almost doubling compared to the 222 million euros in the previous year. (1 euro = 1.10 U.S. dollars) Enditem