Carige's board of directors must today give the green light to a subordinated bond which will have among its subscribers the voluntary scheme of the interbank fund for the protection of deposits. The shareholders' meeting of the latter will meet on November 30 to approve a commitment of up to 320 million euros.
According to the Radiocor agency, the document containing the basic information on the issue indicates an annual coupon of 13%, a 5-year maturity and a time frame of up to 12 months for the conversion of the security which, if the strengthening plan is respected announced on November 12, it should be repaid in the spring by the capital increase. This last operation which will be up to 400 million euros, according to the process currently drawn up, will start on 22 March next.
The loan is similar to a convertible since the conversion is mandatory for the investors who will subscribe to it (whether they are already shareholders of the bank or not) while the Interbank Fund will in practice be the guarantor of the unopted share capital increase. The termsheet of the bond being worked on could also include a mechanism linked to the conversion values of the instrument into shares based on the capitalization of the institution at the time of the increase.
Once approved by Carige's board of directors, the bond will end up on the table of the bank's most important shareholders (Malacalza Investimenti, Gabriele Volpi's Financiera Lonestar, Raffaele Mincione's Pop12, Spinelli family's Spininvest) but there are those who assure that other subjects are ready to think about the investment above all in relation to the subsequent increase.
The initial scheme envisages a subscription of 320 million euro by the voluntary scheme (if the shareholders' meeting of the latter approves it) and an intervention by other subscribers between zero and 80 million euro: in the event that this threshold is exceeded, the Interbank Fund would reduce its commitment to a minimum of 200 million.
The transaction involves Ubs as financial advisor to the bank, the Gatti Pavesi Bianchi studio as legal advisor and Vitale&Co. as a consultant to the independent directors.
