* Milan bourse to be sold by London Stock Exchange
* Bourse controls key Italian bond trading platform
* Rome wants Italian-French bid to prevail - source
(Adds comment, background)
By Giuseppe Fonte and Gavin Jones
ROME, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Italy is ready to use its vetting
"golden" powers over strategic assets to ensure the Milan stock
exchange, Borsa Italiana, is not sold to an unacceptable bidder,
Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri said on Wednesday.
The London Stock Exchange (LSE), which bought Borsa Italiana
for 1.6 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in 2007, has put it on sale
to win European Union approval for its $27 billion takeover of
data company Refinitiv.
Gualtieri said in a statement he hoped Borsa Italiana, which
controls the key bond-trading platform MTS, would not end up in
the hands of a company outside the euro zone.
He said the government was following the situation closely,
"aware of the strategic importance that Borsa Italiana and MTS
have for the correct workings of the Italian financial market
and the entire Italian economic and production system."
Rome considers sovereign bond trading platform MTS of
strategic importance as it ramps up borrowing to boost its
economy that has been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deutsche Boerse, the Swiss stock exchange Six and
a consortium comprising France's Euronext and Italian
state-lender CDP are all expected to present offers for Borsa
Italiana, sources have told Reuters.
Rome "strongly wants" the consortium of CDP and Euronext to
prevail, an Italian government source said following Gualtieri's
statement.
Italian law allows the government to block attempts by EU
and non-EU players to acquire a controlling stake in any company
deemed strategically important.
Last month, the ruling coalition also increased the powers
available to market regulator Consob to shield the country's
stock exchange.
The deadline for non-binding bids for the Borsa Italiana
group is Sept. 11, sources said in August.
The EU's competition regulator expressed concern in June
that a combination of LSE's MTS and Refinitiv, which
owns bond platform Tradeweb, would have a large market share in
European government bond trading.
Refinitiv is 45%-owned by Thomson Reuters, parent of Reuters
News.
($1 = 0.8473 euros)
(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte and Gavin Jones; Editing by Mark
Potter)