Italy Financial News

(ANSA) - Rome, October 27 - Results for the third quarter should place Alitalia close to breaking even on an operating level, the Italian airline's chief executive officer said on Tuesday.

''I believe that we will achieve our little dream of breaking even,'' CEO Rocco Sabelli said in reference to the third quarter results which will presented to the company's board on November 5.

Alitalia was reborn at the start of the year as a private airline with the same name after the national carrier was declared bankrupt in 2008.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 27 - Italy's popular SuperEnalotto game continues to offer the world's biggest jackpot, even though it is still far from the European record of 147.8 million euros set two months ago.

Tuesday's draw will see 77.7 million euros up for grabs, which is still ahead of the 77 million euros being offered by Europe's EuroMillions game while the pot for America's PowerBall is a distant third at some 27.5 million euros.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 27 - Consumer confidence this month took an unexpected downturn, an apparent indication of a return of pessimism, especially in regard to individual economic situations, according to the Treasury's economic think-tank.

The Institute for Economic Study and Analysis (ISAE) said its consumer confidence index, which last month hit its highest level since March, tumbled from 113.6 points in September to 111.7 points.

Nevertheless, ISAE observed, its level still remained higher than the average for the first half of the year.

(ANSA) - Turin, October 26 - Workers laid off this year in the industrial region of Piedmont will receive 3,000 euros from local government, regional president Mercedes Bresso announced Monday.

Officials say around 5,000 people in the region are eligible for the cash, which will come in the form of prepaid bank cards.

In order to qualify, residents must have must have worked at least 90 days this year and earned less than 13,000 the year before.

(ANSA) - Luxembourg, October 26 - Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Monday voiced his support for a French proposal to slap an additional import duty on goods from countries which do adhere on to a global effort to cut greenhouse gases.

Frattini said the idea was currently only at a discussion stage and that no agreement had been reached between European Union members.

However, Italy's diplomatic chief said it was ''an interesting idea and more than an import tariff I'd describe it as a measure of compensation''.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 26 - Premier Silvio Berlusconi met on Monday with the steering committee of his People of Freedom (PdL) party which gave its full support to the government's economic policy.

In a statement issued after the morning encounter, the panel said there was agreement ''on the need expressed by the premier to focus on two equally valid necessities: maintaining fiscal rigor and supporting the economic recovery... especially at a time when there are signs of improvement in the economic crisis''.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 22 - A leading Italian consumer rights group has called for a 20% price cut to offset a decline in retail sales which in August fell for the seventh month in a row.

The appeal from Codacons came after national statistics bureau Istat reported that in August year-on-year retail sales sank 2.9% and were off 0.1% from the previous month, the third consecutive month-on-month decline in a row.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 22 - Retail sales in Italy fell 2.9% in August over the same month last year and slipped 0.1% from July, national statistics bureau Istat reported on Thursday.

The August drop in sales also affected the major outlets, with a 2.4% year-on-year drop, while sales in smaller stores sank 3.3%, Istat added.

According to Istat, the August decline was the third monthly and seventh year-on-year fall in a row.

(ANSA) - Turin, October 21 - Fiat on Wednesday confirmed its performance targets for 2009 after releasing its third quarter results which, while weak, were better than expected.

''We had another strong quarter in a flat market,'' observed Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne, who added that the third quarter results ''were in line with our expectations and we're satisfied with the performance of all sectors''.

''Even though it is difficult to make predictions for 2010, the worst appears to be over,'' Marchionne said.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 21 - Italy's popular SuperEnalotto game is currently offering the world's biggest jackpot, even though it is still far from the European record of 147.8 million euros set two months ago.

Thursday's draw will see 75.8 million euros up for grabs, which is way ahead of the 59 million euros being offered by Europe's EuroMillions game and some 16.7 million euros in the pot for America's PowerBall.

(ANSA) - Turin, October 21 - Fiat's earnings and profits for the third quarter were down but still better than expected and have allowed the Italian automaker to confirm its performance targets for 2009.

Fiat in 2009 expects to see a trading profit of over one billion euros, with its debt falling below five billion euros.

Trading profit - before taxation and other deductions - sank 62% to 308 million euros in the third quarter but this was better than the some 260 million euros analysts had expected.

(ANSA) - Milan, October 21 - The Italian Banking Association (ABI) on Wednesday decided to allow mortgage holders who are in serious economic difficulty to suspend payments for up to one year.

The measure, which will go into effect in January, will be open mortgage holders who have lost their jobs, who are on temporary layoff plans, who were self-employed but have gone out of business and who have lost a family member whose income supported the household.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 20 - Industrial turnover and orders tumbled both month-on-month and year-on-year in August with the monthly fall in the greatest since January 2000, national statistics bureau Istat reported on Tuesday.

Turnover in August was down 1.4% over July and 21.2% over August 2008, with the monthly decline the result of a 1.1% drop in domestic turnover and 2% fall from abroad.

Orders sank 8.6% for the month, the greatest fall since Istat began making comparisons, and 27.5% for the year.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 19 - Alitalia surpassed its goal of breaking even in the third quarter, after posting losses in the first two, according to Rocco Sabelli, the chief executive officer at the reborn Italian airline.

In a meeting with union representatives on Monday, Sabelli added that the airline's improved health convinced Italy's two biggest banks, UniCredit and Intesa SanPaolo respectively, to extend further loans totalling 100 million euros, which will not be employed in the immediate future.

(ANSA) - Turin, October 19 - Italian police on Monday seized alleged mafia assets worth some three million euros ($4.5 million) in this northwestern Italian city.

They said it was evidence of the mafia's infiltration of the Turin economy.

A company that owns one of Turin's top discotheques was part of the seizure which also included two villas, three apartments and seven cars.