Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA’s shares are undervalued but it needs to link up with another company, Giorgio Garuzzo, the company’s vice chairman, said at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Italy. While Garuzzo didn’t specifically mention that Olivetti should seek a merger, he said the company already has had contacts with other companies, but that no negotiations were currently taking place. Garuzzo downplayed a recent suggestion by an executive at Mediaset SpA, the broadcast company controlled by Silvio Berlusconi’s Fininvest SpA, that there could be a link between the two groups, saying I don’t see anything there. He also declined to comment on the earnings outlook for Olivetti, after the company forecast that it would report a 1996 pre-tax loss of about $497m, down from a loss of $1.05bn in 1995 and specifically refused comment on some analysts’ forecasts that Olivetti won’t see profit before 1998.
