Società per azioni

Società per azioni (S.p.A. or SpA) is a form of corporation in Italy, meaning "company with shares" (although often translated as "joint-stock company", which may or may not be a limited liability entity). It is more or less equivalent to S.A. or public limited company in other countries.

The other common form of corporation in Italy was società a responsabilità limitata (s.r.l.) (literally: limited liability company). S.p.A. issued shares (Italian: azioni), 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.[1]

Since 2016, banks are required to run as S.p.A. if their assets are more than a defined threshold.[2] 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 (respectively, co-operative company by shares, co-operative company with limited liability, and co-operative company).