The long-awaited breakthrough on Banca Carige has arrived. Board of Interbank Fund Voluntary Scheme (FITD) unanimously greenlights Blackrock plan to restore the Ligurian bank.
So phase one of the rescue comes to life. This was announced by the president of the organization, Salvatore Maccarrone: “The management board approved our intervention according to the scheme agreed with Blackrock and convened the meeting for the 14th in Rome”.
“It is an operation with which we believe that the problems are resolved definitively”. declared the president, according to which "a subject like Blackrock who puts in a significant amount of money, someone who is an expert in these things, who is not a subject who had to carry out the operation by force and who therefore freely chose to intervene , suggests that we are here”, he added.
“Our intervention – he explained – is part of an operation that has Blackrock as the entrepreneur who intervenes. It articulates through a capital increase whose amount is not yet defined, but will fluctuate around 720 million".
If so, the Fund will hold approximately 43% of Carige's capital.
Maccarrone then spoke in detail about the plan. It is, he said, “about three connected increases in a single context: the first part to service the full conversion of the bonds, for the convertible part, therefore for approximately 313 million, the second reserved for Blackrock for an amount not yet determined and the third reserved for the bank's shareholders, with the commitment that all the unexercised shares will be subscribed by the Blackrock group and therefore there is a guarantee of coverage of the entire capital”.
As for future governance arrangements, according to Maccarrone, “It is very likely that Blackrock will appoint the CEO, while the directors will be proportional to the shares held”. “We don't want to be in control and we will work to ensure that this effect does not occur, he added, explaining that the shares held by private shareholders will have warrants on the basis of which there is the possibility for holders to purchase shares in the Fund, which has an interest in getting rid of them because it is not a shareholder stable".
There will therefore be the possibility for the fund to exit by selling its shares on the market or through the exercise of the warrants by the shareholders.
LThe operation “will be concluded within the year. The next step is the presentation of the operation on the 17th to the ECB, then there will be the authorisations”, including the exemption from the takeover bid obligation by Consob and “a series of steps which they will take up this year”.
Recall that after the ok of the scheme, the proposal must also be approved by the shareholders, or by the banks participating in the Interbank Fund. The assembly, as explained by Maccarrone himself, will meet on May 14th.
