SMEs on the stock exchange, more exits than entries: in less than two years, 44 billion disappeared from the list
The first annual report by Consob and Cetif-Università Cattolica depicts a scenario where SMEs struggle to access the capital market despite it being considered a powerful accelerator of growth and competitiveness
Italian SMEs say they want to grow. And when it comes to real growth - the kind that makes you invest, hire, innovate - the capital market should be the most logical shortcut. And yet, in practice, for many companies the stock market remains a half-open door: they enter with difficulty and leave more and more often. Between 2023 and the first half of 2025, 62 SMEs entered the stock exchange, but in the same period 86 exited. Result: the list has shrunk and, above all, more than EUR 44 billion of capitalisation has evaporated.
It is not a slogan: it is what the First Report of the Observatory "SMEs and Capital Market", born from the collaboration between Consob and Cetif - Università Cattolica, which for the first time tries to put in order, numbers in hand, the access and permanence of Italian SMEs on the markets.
The production fabric
The starting point is structural: Italia is an economic system mainly made up of small companies. The Observatory's mapping - based on a representative sample of around 120,000 SMEs out of 1.5 million - shows that the vast majority of unlisted companies are small: less than 50 employees in the vast majority of cases. And when the size is that, listing is not just 'a financial choice': it becomes a change of mentality and organisation.
Geographically, another key fact emerges: Lombardy alone accounts for more than a fifth of the entire universe of SMEs analysed. And at sector level, manufacturing continues to be the backbone of the system, both among unlisted companies and those that have managed to get their name on the stock exchange.
Here comes the first fracture: the listed SMEs are very few, a tiny fraction compared to the total observed. But they are also different from the others: on average larger, more present in the technological and scientific sectors, and therefore more driven towards innovation, growth and competitiveness. In essence: when an SME really succeeds in getting listed, it is often because it already has 'big' characteristics.
