Look beyond the crisis to find Italy's new success stories Italy's industrial and commercial landscape is being reshaped by crop of new listings Energy companies, utilities, banks, insurers and manufacturers reign supreme over Milan's stock exchange. They account for the vast majority of its market capitalisation. They also account for the nagging sensation that Italian shareholder capitalism inhabits a conservative, patriarchal world in sore need of fresh faces and different ideas. Italian business is not short of creativity. On the contrary, it is rich with the sort of talents that produced world-beaters such as Merloni, Olivetti and Zanussi and have reaped success in more recent times for Geox and Luxottica. But conditions in financial markets have been stormy. Italy has suffered two harsh recessions, enfeebling its banks and thinning the wallets of consumers. All this has restricted the opportunity for some of the nation's most imaginative and well-organised companies to speed up their development by going public. Happily, the picture is brightening. At the Milan bourse investors will find a crop of lively, specialised companies that have listed themselves in the past 18 months or are poised to do so in the near future. In size some are middling to large; others are small and growing. But what is fascinating about all of them is that, while they draw on traditional Italian strengths, they are setting the tone for an age defined less rigidly by the venerable financial and industrial giants of post-1945 Italy. Three examples are Brunello Cucinelli, Moncler and Yamamay-Carpisa. The first, known for its top-of-the-range cashmere clothes, went public in April 2012 and has since tripled its share price to more than €23. The second, whose stock market debut is imminent, is a fast-growing maker of quilted down jackets and coats. The third, which specialises in luxury lingerie, beachwear and accessories, is part of the Pianoforte holding company and is set to seek a listing next year or in 2015. It is no coincidence that all three companies are in the high-end fashion business. Like Salvatore Ferragamo and Prada, which enjoyed successful initial public offerings in 2011, they command top prices because they embody the Italian fashion industry's long-established reputation across the world for luxury, quality and style. Yet this alone does not explain how, for example, Remo Ruffini, Moncler's chief executive and second largest shareholder with a 32 per cent stake, boosted revenues tenfold to €489m last year from less than €50m in 2003. Moncler owes its growth to Mr Ruffini's skill in building recognition for the brand, treating sportswear as a non-strategic business and maximising the potential for international expansion. Until his arrival 10 years ago, Moncler was in essence a regional French skiwear company that catered to professional skiers and enthusiastic amateurs. Mr Ruffini changed all that by reinventing Moncler as an upmarket leisure brand for people in cities everywhere. He also limited the impact on Moncler of weak Italian consumer conditions by seeking out markets in China. Asia now accounts for a third of Moncler's sales. However, Mr Ruffini is right not to rely too much on one geographical market: last year, he appointed a manager for the US and recruited a new manager for online operations. A similar emphasis on balanced overseas expansion is visible at Brunello Cucinelli and Yamamay. Recent fashion listings have been so promising that Raffaele Jerusalmi, the Milan exchange's chief executive, talks of making his bourse "the market of reference for luxury goods." Yet take a look at the companies launched this year on Milan's Alternative Investment Market, the segment for small and medium-sized companies with high growth potential. Here, under the shadow of the behemoths of Italian energy, manufacturing industry and finance, are the upstarts that embody the variety of the nation's youthful private sector. Very few deal in fashion. Instead they specialise in renewable energy, information technology, agricultural products and airport baggage security services. Moleskine, listed on Milan's mid-cap segment, makes elegant notebooks, diaries and sketchbooks. In no period since the second world war has Italy experienced such industrial devastation as over the past five years. According to Confindustria, the employers" federation, Italy has lost more than 15 per cent of its manufacturing capacity. Some 32,000 Italian companies have shut down, mostly small and medium sized ones. But in any country there are winners as well as losers in times of economic upheaval. Not all the winners in Italy's crisis will list themselves on the stock market. But those that do so will reshape Italy's industrial and commercial landscape and will surely reward investors in the process. Tony Barber is the Financial Times" Europe Editor