Italy on Sale to Chinese Investors as Recession Bites
Clotilde Narzisi and Luca Soliman have run the Caffe Orefici, 200 feet from Milan’s iconic Duomo Cathedral, for 10 years. Forced to sell their business because of high taxes, they say their only hope now is to leave it in Chinese hands.
“They are the only ones who are buying,” said 43-year-old Narzisi during a break after the lunch-time rush of businessmen and shoppers in the heart of Italy’s financial capital. “We want to sell, taxes are too high; we work eight hours a day for the state and one hour for us.”
Caffe Orefici is among the 18,000 advertisements from businesses and individuals that have been published since February last year on Vendereaicinesi.it — sell to the Chinese — a website that helps Italians, stricken by the third recession in six years, attract bids for properties, products and services from Chinese suitors.
While unemployment near a record of 12.7 percent and fiscal burden at an all-time high make it difficult for Italians to access credit, the 321,000 Chinese living in the country are better positioned as they can count on family networks rather than banks for financing, said Toppino, who’s from the northwestern town of Alba.
More than 90 Chinese groups, excluding Hong Kong, had a stake in Italian firms at the end of 2013, up almost 20 percent, according to the Milan-based Italy-China Foundation, which promotes business among the two countries.
“Confidence has returned and investing in the country is convenient because prices are very low right now and there are jewels being sold for peanuts,” said Antimo Cappuccio, a Shanghai-based partner of Pirola Pennuto Zei & Associati.
The Chinese “are buying pretty much everything so I tried to put an ad as well,” said Marina Cerrato, who in July last year sold her amusement arcade in Alba in less than 40 days to a Chinese family from Bologna through the Vendereaicinesi.it website. “I didn’t give it away, I sold at the price I intended.”
Source: bloomberg- Italy on Sale to Chinese Investors as Recession Bites
