Foreign companies have begun investing in Italian businesses with a vengeance. Chiomenti's Massimiliano Nitti documents the recent developments

New signs of deal life have emerged with respect to direct foreign investment in Italian businesses. Recent developments involving small to largescale foreign investment suggest that the appeal of Italy for direct foreign investment is increasing. The financial crisis has brought to light the resilience of Italian companies due in part to the stability of the national credit market but also to the competitiveness and inventiveness of Italian entrepreneurs.

A brief overview of some of the more prominent M&A deals that have taken place in Italy within the past year demonstrate that Italy is poised to realise significant foreign investment and that protectionism has not taken hold of Italian policy. It has become clear in recent months that foreign investment is once again on the rise.

A case in point: the privately-held French dairy conglomerate, Groupe Lactalis, has made headlines in its attempt to gain control of Italy's giant food conglomerate Parmalat through the launching of a tender offer of €3.4bn (£3bn), which, if accepted, would increase its minority interest to ownership of Parmalat's entire share capital. In response to the takeover bid, Rome issued a decree which allowed parmalatParmalat to delay a shareholder meeting that would have in all likelihood allowed Lactalis to gain control over the appointment of a new board of directors.

The respite provided Italian companies and banks the opportunity to block the Lactalis bid by organising a group of Italian investors willing to outbid the French competitor.

However, the 'Italian solution' – the formation of an Italian coalition to outbid Lactalis in obtaining control of Parmalat – ultimately has shown itself to be more the expression of a wishful preference rather than the imposition of a real roadblock, and the Italian stock market authority has given the green light to the French takeover bid.

Further proof that foreign investment and mergers involving Italian companies are on the rise is evidenced by the successful acquisition by LVMH, the French luxury goods conglomerate, of Bulgari, the world-leading Italian designer and producer of jewellery and watches for a deal valued at €3.7bn (£3.3bn). LVMH's interest in Bulgari arises out of expansion efforts resulting from recent strong gains in the high-end consumer goods market where revenues and profits have jumped significantly in the past year.

Even more recently, in May 2011, BC Partners agreed to buy the Italian department store chain Gruppo Coin from rival private equity fund PAI Partners. The deal (worth about €1.3bn (£1.1bn)) appears to be the largest private equity deal in Italy in four years and one of the biggest retail deals since the financial crisis.

On a smaller scale, in February 2011, the London-based private equity fund Change Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in the Italian restaurant chain Rossopomodoro. Change Capital Partners invested around €14m (£12m) to acquire a two-thirds stake in the closely-held Italian company. The investment is part of the fund's strategic plans to solidify its position in the food-retail segment and to capitalise on the what it views as Vesevo's considerable international potential by expanding the Italian-based restaurant chain into countries such as the US and the UK.

Data from 2010 also shows improving foreign investment and deal flow. In October 2010, a subsidiary of the Sweden-based investment company Investment AB Latour bought the entire stake in the Italian-based air-conditioning manufacturer Blue Box as part of the Swedish investor's desire to expand operations in the global ventilation and air-conditioning sector. In addition, in December 2010, the Chinese-Italian private equity fund Mandarin Capital Partners invested €20m (£18m) in Italian-based Italmatch Chemicals, a producer of intermediates for lubricating oil and anti-flame additives for plastics, for a deal value of approximately €100m (£88m).

The encouraging signs of the relative stability of the Italian credit markets, government restraint in response to domestic calls for protectionism and an improving capital markets environment suggest that foreign investment and cross-border M&A activity for the remainder of 2011 will continue to build upon recent gains.

Massimiliano Nitti is a partner at Chiomenti.