HOW STRUCTURED AD HOC FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS CAN SUPPORT NEW TYPES OF INTERNAL ASSET AND PRODUCTIVE SEPARATION IN THE FIRM AND NEW INNOVATION STRATEGIES

This paper focuses on how the ad hoc structure of certain financial instruments can support targets of production and asset separation in the firm. Of major interest are some participatory instruments, recently introduced in Italy in connection with particular internal separation achieved by setting aside predetermined operative assets, fully separated from the rest of the firm. These assets are dedicated to carrying out a specific project and represent the capital put at risk for this purpose, in other words the impact boundary of such risk. Hence the amount of such assets cannot exceed a very small fraction of the company’s capital. However, possible integrations may occur externally, in the form of financial resources or professional competences, which have, as a counterpart, financial instruments whose asset rights rest only on the specific project’s performance. The particular leverage effect thereby obtained can strongly contribute to promote new drivers for an innovating corporate strategy. There is also an interesting parallelism with another type of instrument utilized in the US and France for a different form of internal separation.