Futures up after Moody's; crude oil rises

(Alliance News) - Piazza Affari is expected to rise ahead of Monday's start of trading, three days after Moody's confirmed Italy's rating and raised the outlook to Stable from Negative.

Moody's reasons for upgrading Italy's outlook were mainly threefold: the soundness of banks, the positive effect of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan - PNRR, and lower energy costs.

These factors have helped dispel the risk of Italy's rating being downgraded to the 'junk' category of speculative investments.

According to Moody's baseline projection, debt is expected to decline in 2023, boosted by still robust nominal growth and deficit reduction. The rating agency expects the debt-to-GDP ratio to reach 140.3 percent in 2023, registering a decline from 141.7 percent in 2022, though remaining about 6 percentage points higher than before the pandemic.

The FTSE Mib is expected to rise 60.0 points or 0.2 percent after closing up 0.8 percent to 29,498.43 on Friday's session.

London's FTSE 100 is given down 5.3 points or 0.1 percent, Paris' CAC 40 is shown up 5.8 points or 0.1 percent and Frankfurt's DAX 40 is expected to be in the red 9.2 points or 0.1 percent.

On Friday evening in Piazza Affari, the Mid-Cap rose 0.9 percent to 41,727.90, the Small-Cap closed up 0.8 percent to 25,925.24 and the Italy Growth gained 0.7 percent to 7,717.18.

On the main list of Piazza Affari, Banco BPM closed up 0.5 percent Friday after announcing a cash repurchase offer for all or part of its EUR300 million perpetual bond, with a coupon of 8.750 percent and a total outstanding nominal amount of EUR300 million.

In addition, the bank also disclosed the launch of a new issue of an Additional Tier 1 fixed-rate reset perpetual bond with a nominal amount of EUR300 million.

Assicurazioni Generali finished down 0.6 percent despite reporting a doubling of its first nine-month profit to EUR2.82 billion from EUR1.46 billion in the same period a year earlier.

In contrast, adjusted net income rose to EUR2.98 billion from EUR2.30 billion while adjusted earnings per share increased to EUR1.93 from EUR1.46.

The group confirmed a strong capital position, with the Solvency II ratio at 224 percent from 221 percent at the end of 2022. The increase mainly reflects the strong contribution of normalized capital generation, which, together with the overall positive impact from market variances, more than offset negative impacts from regulatory changes, noneconomic variances, and capital movements such as the dividend accrual for the period, net of the recent subordinated debt issue.

Leonardo -- up 1.9 percent -- reported that the offering price of the 18.0 million shares of DRS Inc. offered to the public in the U.S. is USD17.75.

The completion of the offering is scheduled for November 21 and is subject to customary closing conditions. Following the completion of the offering, Leonardo is expected to hold about 73.3 percent of the issued and outstanding common shares of DRS or about 72.3 percent if the underwriting banks' option to purchase additional shares is fully exercised.

Saipem and DiaSorin also did well, topping with 3.1% and 2.8% respectively.

On the predominantly bullish Mid-Cap, Anima Holding closed up 1.1 percent after announcing that it has signed a binding agreement to acquire 100 percent of Kairos Partners SGR from parent Kairos Investment Management.

The maximum consideration agreed for the sale "is equal to the capital surplus--currently estimated between EUR20 million and EUR25 million--over the company's minimum regulatory requirements, subject to possible adjustment depending on the performance of assets under management following the signing of the agreement," Anima specified in a statement.

Digital Value did best of all, rising 4.6 percent, followed by Tod's, up 4.0 percent.

On the Small-Cap, Brioschi--up 1.3 percent--sold its entire 70 percent stake in Milanofiori Energia to Getec Italia.

The sale price for the 70 percent stake owned by Brioschi was about EUR3.2 million and was paid in full by the buyer.

Somec closed up 0.7 percent after reporting that its subsidiary Bluesteel won a new order in the UK worth about GBP9 million-about EUR10.5 million at today's exchange rate- related to the redevelopment project of an iconic tower, a symbol of 1960s London.

Bluesteel, part of the Naval Architecture and Civil Facades Engineered Systems division and active at the European level as a player in the fabrication and installation of curtain walls and window frames, will work on behalf of one of the UK's most important real estate companies, handling the design, supply and installation of the building's new entrance pavilion, the shielding of the plant area and the new volume that will be built to crown the tower.

Among SMEs, Innovatec--up 4.1 percent--reported Friday that it closed the first nine months of the year with revenues down to EUR149.9 million compared to EUR222.3 million in the same period of 2022. The decrease, the company explained, reflects the reduction of the 110% ecobonus business as a result of the regulatory and financial stop& go from the second half of 2022.

Ebitda amounted to EUR19.2 million from EUR27.0 million in the same period of 2022 and followed the dynamics recorded by revenues,

RES gave up 3.4 percent after reporting that it obtained a EUR8 million loan from Banco BPM for the construction of the plastics recycling plant.

The five-year floating-rate credit line with eight months of pre-amortization is backed by an 80% SACE Green guarantee and finances the construction in Pettoranello, in the province of Isernia, of Phase I of the project to build an integrated center for the thrust sorting and recycling of plastics aimed at the production of secondary raw materials and the recovery of process waste by transformation into pyrolytic oil.

MeglioThis closed up 19 percent after reporting that it ended the first nine months with improved accounts, as value of production rose 33 percent year-on-year to EUR70.1 million from EUR52.8 million in the same period last year.

Still doing well was Datrix, which closed up 7.9 percent after ending Thursday up 12 percent. The SME won a major European call for proposals - Horizon Europe - in the area of AI for healthcare.

The research project is called "Better," an acronym for Better Real-World Health-Data Distributed Analytics Research Platform, and aims to create a user-friendly platform that physicians in European hospitals will be able to use to view patient data - comparable and filterable by pathology or genetic parameters - and train predictive models, while complying with the most stringent privacy regulations globally related to health information, all through a federated learning and distributed AI approach.

In total, this is EUR10 million in funds allocated at the European level, about half of which will be used for genetic sequencing, since the genetic component is essential in the diseases being analyzed, divided into three macro-areas and as many applications: rare pediatric diseases, autism spectrum disorders in children and adolescents, and congenital visual problems, with a focus on retinal diseases.

In Asia, the Nikkei closed Monday down 0.6 percent to 33,388.03, the Shanghai Composite gained 0.5 percent to 3,068.32 and the Hang Seng was up 1.6 percent to 17,731.25.

In New York on Friday evening, the Dow closed flat at 34,947.28, the Nasdaq gained 0.1 percent to 14,125.48 and the S&P 500 was up 0.1 percent to 4,514.02.

Among currencies, the euro changed hands at USD1.0928 against USD1.0881 recorded in Friday's European stock close while the pound was worth USD1.2478 from USD1.2422 on Friday evening.

Among commodities, Brent crude is worth USD81.33 per barrel from USD79.86 per barrel at Friday's close. Gold, on the other hand, trades at USD1,981.43 an ounce from USD1,981.25 an ounce Friday evening.

Monday's macroeconomic calendar includes, Eurozone construction sector output data, at 1100 CET, German and French short-term bond auctions, and U.S. Treasury short-sale bond auctions, at 1730 CET.

Omer results are scheduled in the Piazza Affari calendar.

By Giuseppe Fabio Ciccomascolo, Alliance News senior reporter

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