(Adds shares, details, background)
MILAN, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Farming and construction
machine maker CNH said on Thursday it would drop out
of Milan's stock exchange and leave its shares listed only in
New York, the latest heavyweight company to quit the market.
The group said its primary plan is to achieve a plain
delisting from Milan and do so by early 2024, but did not rule
out alternative paths to achieve the same goal, including a
corporate reorganisation.
"Concentrating trading in one market will allow for
increased liquidity and investor focus, while further
simplifying the company profile and compliance requirements,"
the company said in a statement.
Shares declined after the news and fell 2% by 1138 GMT,
underperforming a 0.8% rise in Italy's blue chip index before recovering some lost ground.
Milan saw an exodus of companies from its market last
year, a trend that legislators and regulators
would like to reverse.
Among the companies that left the 200-year-old Borsa
Italiana last year were Exor itself, while road and airport
operator Atlantia departed after a buyout.
Since spinning off its truck-making business Iveco Group last year, most of CNH's stock trading has shifted to
New York, showing that the group's new business profile and
investor base fit better with a single U.S. listing, it said.
The chief executive of Exor , CNH's parent company,
said last November that going from a double to single listing
for CNH Industrial did not mean taking the firm private.
CNH Industrial, which has had a dual listing for the past
decade, said that Goldman Sachs was acting as its financial
advisor for the delisting.
The group is due to report its fourth-quarter results
later in the day.
(Reporting by Federico Maccioni
editing by Keith Weir)
