Società per azioni
Società per azioni is a form of corporation in Italy, meaning "company with shares". It is equivalent to S.A. or public limited company in other countries. However, S.p.A. has some differences from plc or S.A.
The other common form of corporation in Italy was società a responsabilità limitata . S.p.A. issued shares, while in s.r.l. the unit was quote/stock of share capital. Moreover, the articles of association of s.r.l. allowed different allocation of profit and assets, which was more comparable to a limited partnership.
Since 2016, banks are required to run as S.p.A. if their assets are more than a defined threshold. This saw the blue chips of the FTSE MIB Index: Banco BPM, BPER Banca, UBI Banca, demutualized from s.c.p.a., s.c. a.r.l., or s.c. legal forms .
