The extraordinary shareholders' meeting of Banca Mps, which met in Siena, gave, with a large majority (98,1% of those present), theThe green light for the delegation to the BoD to launch a capital increase of up to one billion euros, with the exclusion of the option right to be implemented within the next five years. The delegation also provides that the operation can be carried out in one or more rounds.
During the fiery assembly the managing director of Montepaschi Fabrizio Viola he also took stock of the situation regarding the inspection by Bank of Italy, now completed, specifying that, however, that of Consob is still in progress, and declared that he wanted to wait for the procedure to be completed before making any public comment.
For Viola, then, the summer months have shown a trend reversal for the Bank, "because everyone in the bank has worked very hard to correct worrying and unjustified trends", but it is still premature to consider it a structural reversal.
Viola, still in the context of the shareholders' meeting, also called for un prompt return of the unions to the negotiating table, in the coming weeks, adding that "We appreciated the proposals for alternative solutions from the trade unions, but the problem is that the path is narrow and we cannot afford not to reach the objective of cost reduction set forth in the Industrial Plan".
Alessandro Profumo, president of Banca Mps, then took the floor, stating that he did not want to sell the bank and that, in this regard, "the ideal shareholder, from our point of view, is a non-industrial shareholder". Profumo then specified that Mps' objective is to maintain the Bank's independence, but that, at the moment, no subscriber for the capital increase has come forward.
The president of the MPS Foundation Gabriello Mancini also spoke at the meeting, saying he was optimistic about the first signs launched by the new business plan in the first hundred days of its implementation and declared that he was confident, on behalf of the Foundation, "that a synthesis will be found between the indispensable industrial needs of rationalization of the operating machine and the need to maintain the centrality of employees“. For Mancini, the vote in favor of the delegation to the Board of Directors for the capital increase is “an obligatory choice within the current economic-financial scenarios, as is the exclusion of the option right.
The president of the MPS Foundation then claimed the independence of his choice, saying he was convinced "that he made this choice in the interest of the community". However, his intervention was harshly contested by the shareholders and employees opposed to the capital increase, who interrupted his speech with boos and chants.
