Predictably, Cassa Centrale Banca (the second holding company of the Bccs) has renounced to exercise the call option to increase from the current stake of 8,34% to 88% of Banca Carige's capital. The investment to take over the Ligurian bank would have been too expensive, especially at a time when the pandemic has made it necessary to strengthen the cooperative credit banks that are part of the Trentino holding company. The decision was communicated to the Interbank Deposit Protection Fund (FITD) which had entered it into the account and which replied confirming its intention to remain in the Ligurian bank which is not doing badly, based on the latest balance sheet data, but that he will certainly need new partners for his future.
It is not excluded that the Interbank Fund is thinking of bringing Banca Carige to the Stock Exchange and making the search for new shareholders as transparent as possible. However, everything will be done without haste, even if in reality the scenario of the banking system is becoming more complicated in view of a consolidation that envisages various hypotheses. In the first place there is the need for the Treasury, which is the first shareholder of Monte dei Paschi, to leave the Sienese bank and marry it off to give it stability and to respond to the agreements signed at the time with the European Commission. Until some time ago it seemed that the recipient of the Monte was Unicredit but after the appointment as CEO of the bank in Piazza Gae Aulenti by Andrea Orcel, considered the Cristiano Ronaldo of mergers and acquisitions, the scenarios could change. Or rather, Orcel would not exclude the purchase of Mps a priori but only if the dowry made available by the Treasury were particularly convenient. Otherwise, Orcel would turn his attention to Banco Bpm which, however, has been in talks for some time now for a marriage with the Bper, as stock exchange prices have been reporting for days.
But above all in the plans of Orcel, and in particular of international funds and Leonardo Del Vecchio who have favored his rise to the top of Unicredit, there is entry into Mediobanca which would allow the bank in Piazza Gae Aulenti to strengthen retail and consumer credit with Che Banca! and above all to enter investment banking in force.
The new Carige case is therefore added to this context even if the prudence of the Interbank Fund on its fate seems to have more than one reason.
