The following factors could affect Italian markets on Thursday.
Reuters has not verified the newspaper reports, and cannot vouch for their accuracy. New items are marked with (*).
EURO ZONE
S&P's two-notch downgrade from BBB-plus brings it in line with Moody's Investors Service's Baa3 rating. Moody's has Spain on review for a possible downgrade.
ITALIAN DEBT
The Treasury sells 2.75-3.75 billion euros of 3-year BTPs and 1.5-2.25 billion euros of three off-the-run BTPs.
TOBIN TAX
Italy's government expects to raise at least 1 billion euros from the financial transaction Rome aims to introduce starting from the beginning of next year, daily Il Corriere della Sera said on Thursday.
* Italy will pay slightly more than a month ago to borrow over three years at a bond auction on Thursday, a sign of renewed doubts over the euro zone's ability to end its debt crisis due to Spain's dithering over aid.
UNIPOL , FONSAI
The Italian insurer has appealed to the Tar against the ruling of Antitrust which had given its blessing to the merger with loss-making peer Fondiaria-Sai conditional to a sale of some Unipol assets, Repubblica said on Thursday.
* FINMECCANICA
Talks on a $45 billion merger between EADS and BAE Systems collapsed after the governments of France, Germany and Britain failed to reach agreement over a deal to create the world's largest aerospace and arms group.
Siemens is still interested in buying 100 percent of Finmeccanica's power engineering unit Ansaldo Energia, MF reported on Thursday. The German group would be ready to offer 1.3 billion euros to buy the Italian company.
FIAT
Europe's car market will not really recover without EU-led coordination of capacity cuts, Fiat and Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said, in an apparent back-track on comments he made at the Paris auto show last month.
UNICREDIT
Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo is set to become the vice chairman of UniCredit , Italy's biggest bank by assets said in a statement on Wednesday.
TELECOM ITALIA
Italy's largest telecoms group Telecom Italia said on Wednesday it is selecting advisors to start assessing aspects of a possible spin-off of its fixed-line access network. [ID: nL6E8LAL17]
IMPREGILO
Impregilo's Chief Executive Pietro Salini is being investigated in connection with a probe into a motorway tender in Romania, judicial sources said on Wednesday.
* ASTALDI
The Italian builder has won a contract worth 145 milion euros in Rome, Mf reported on Thursday.
SEA
Milan airports operator SEA won on Wednesday shareholder approval for its listing plans, paving the way for a debut on the stock market by the end of the year.
((Milan newsroom, +39 02 6612 9507, fax +39 02 801149, milan.newsroom@news.reuters.com))
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