Italy likely to need bailout, analyst warns

Italy is likely to need a bailout as the country slides into deeper fiscal crisis and a credit crunch spreads to large companies, a top Italian bank warned. "Time is running out fast," Antonio Guglielmi, a top analyst for Mediobanca SpA, said in a private client note first reported by British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. "The Italian macro situation has not improved over the last quarter, rather the contrary. Some 160 large corporations in Italy are now in special crisis administration," he said. Mediobanca, Italy's No. 2 bank, said its "index of solvency risk" for Italy was already flashing warning signs as a worldwide bond rout pushed up borrowing costs. Italy, the European Union's No. 5 economy, will "inevitably end up in an EU bailout request" over the next six months unless borrowing costs drop and the economy shifts to a broad recovery. Italy's $2.8 trillion debt is the world's third largest after those of the United States and Japan, the Telegraph said.