An Italian milk-producing company said that it was considering buying out Parmalat, the dairy group which collapsed almost two years ago in a massive fraud scandal, Italian News Agency ANSA reported on Thursday.

The firm Granarolo, which has shown interest in Parmalat before, said it was "studying a takeover bid".

Granarolo General Manager Rossella Saoncella stressed that the operation was "not imminent," adding "we'll see how it goes".

When asked about rumors that the unlisted Granarolo was considering a bid of almost two billion euros (2.4 billion US dollars), Saoncella said that "one only has to study (government-appointed Parmalat administrator Enrico) Bondi's plan".

The comments came two days ahead of Parmalat's return to the stock market.

Trading in Parmalat's shares was suspended at the end of December 2003, when the group first began to go under in a false accounting scam that resulted in estimated debts of 14.5 billion euros (17.4 billion US dollars).

But Bondi has succeeded in setting the dairy group back on its feet, pruning away many of Parmalat's non-core activities and organizing its relisting at a capitalization of 1.6 billion euros (1.92 billion US dollars).

Last week, Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi and 15 other defendants went on trial in Milan accused of market rigging, false auditing, misleading investors and hindering the regulatory activities of bourse watchdog Consob. All deny any wrongdoing.

Tanzi founded Parmalat in 1961, building up his father's salami business into one of the world's top 25 dairy and food groups.

Source: Xinhua