No, it's not over. Massimo Ponzellini leaves the scene, Matteo Arpe steps aside, awaiting developments. A long-time banker, Carlo Salvatori, appears surprisingly on stage. But the match in Piazza Meda remains in the balance.
After the long board of Bpm which fired the draft of the new governance, the match for Bpm moves once again to the Bank of Italy, which is responsible for approving the new text. And it is not difficult to predict that the findings will not be of little importance: the real stake is to remove the institute from the self-referential control of the internal union. And it will be a burning challenge: in fact, the news, anticipated by us, of a "targeted inspection" by the Bank of Italy of the institution's headquarters is confirmed, with specific objections to the behavior of an area of the bank.
Meanwhile, after yesterday's outburst (+12,1%), in Piazza Affari the stock is settling around the new values: -0,9% at the end of the morning, after a positive start. In short, the market is waiting to see the next developments of a match that has reached half-time, still a long way from the 90th minute. In summary:
1) The first certain fact is that the board of directors limited the capital increase to 800 million compared to the Bank of Italy's request for an injection of 1,2 billion. The request from Mediobanca, leader of the placement syndicate, was thus accepted, which certainly did not find much interest from institutional investors. But, in this way, Bpm will not be able to repay the Tremonti bonds, whose interest weighs on the income statement.
2) The departure of Massimo Ponzellini seems obvious. It seems that the outgoing president has agreed on a rich settlement with the front of the "friends of the Bpm", in the face of the far from grateful role of acting as a lightning rod for the disputes of the Supervision of the Bank of Italy.
3) The board approved by majority (11 against 6) the transition to dual governance. In part, the draft was bent to the needs proposed by via Nazionale: the supervisory board (17 members plus two arriving from the subsidiary Cassa d'Alessandria soon merged with Banca di Legnano) will not have powers of direction nor will it be able to dictate the strategic lines to the management board, consisting of five members. Independents will enter the CDS itself, including well-known professors, and representatives of institutional investors who will be able to present their own lists.
4) But the real crux concerns the electoral system and the game of more or less forced alliances which allows the internal trade union representatives, challenged by the national secretariats, to control the institute's operating machine, rewarding or punishing on the basis of "loyalty" to union lists.
5) Not surprisingly, the Cencelli trade union manual has already identified in detail both the team that should govern the CDS and the names of the five who will be part of the management board to which managers and employees already promoted in advance should answer to respect the balance of the tile lords.
6) The supervisory board, which does not lack prestigious names, is already ready for eleven nineteenths: three representatives of Fisac (Ezio Simonelli, Giuseppe Coppini, Mario Mazoleni); three for Uilca (Michele Zefferino, Maurizio Cavalleri, Umberto Bocchino); two for Fiba (Sergio Schieppati and Carlo Dall'Aringa). The team will be completed by Onofrio Amoruso (the man who put the union in contact with Andrea Bonomi) and Marcello Priori as vice presidents. According to this design, Carlo Salvatori should rise to the top.
7) The management board, on the other hand, will see the presence of Enzo Chiesa, today general manager, likely tomorrow managing director, plus the rector of Sda Bocconi Maurizio Dallocchio, as well as Andrea Bonomi (ready to guarantee a figure of around 200 million on the occasion of the increase), Davide Croff and Dante Rozzano, trusted managers of Investindustrial.
8) Will it be a team independent from traditional bank power games? Matteo Arpe thinks not. The former banker of Capitalia limits himself to saying: "Until the conditioning of certain subjects is removed, the rational conditions for any investment are lacking". Developments in the next few hours.
