ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has vetoed the third Chinese takeover in the country since his government took office in February, an official Hong Kong filing by the rebuffed group showed.
Zhejiang Jingsheng Mechanical said on Tuesday Rome had blocked its attempt to set up a joint venture with the Hong Kong arm of Applied Materials to buy the U.S.-based group’s screen printing equipment business in Italy.
Rome reserves the right to use its anti-takeover legislation, or so-called “golden powers”, to ward off undesired bids in industries deemed of strategic importance such as banking, energy, telecoms, semiconductors and health.
It was not immediately clear why the government had prevented the purchase of the screen printing assets in Italy.
Rome has so far stopped foreign interests in Italy five times since the introduction of the golden powers in 2012.
Four of these episodes beat away Chinese bids. Three have been under Draghi’s nine-month old government, with the other adopted in 2020 under Draghi’s predecessor Giuseppe Conte.
(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte in Rome and Ella Cao in Beijing, editing by Gavin Jones)
