The answers from Carige and Consob on goodwill and on the stake held in the Bank of Italy will be discussed in the board meeting on 2 December. According to what Radiocor reports, the work of the management – together with the Chiomenti and d'Urso Gatti studios – will be completed by the end of the week and then submitted to the discussion of the directors in the board on Monday, which will dismiss the counter-arguments to the Consob findings.
On 8 November, in fact, the Commission had informed Carige of the start of a proceeding, formulating the hypotheses of non-compliance found in the 2012 separate and consolidated financial statements and in the 2013 half-yearly: the issues raised concern the valuation of goodwill, in the subsidiaries and of the share held in the Bank of Italy.
These findings had led to the maxi write-down of goodwill for 1,6 billion in the last quarter as well as other adjustments, in addition to the different accounting treatment of the equity investment in the central bank.
The subject was treated only marginally in the Carige council held yesterday which instead examined matters of an ordinary nature. Meanwhile, in recent days, the president Cesare Castelbarco Albani and the new managing director Piero Montani visited the executives of the Bank of Italy to take stock of the work in progress on the business plan and the next delicate steps that await the group in the of the ongoing restructuring process (divestments and recapitalization).
From what has been learned, the central institute has been in favor of giving the management a few more weeks to define the new plan, also given the very recent arrival of Montani at the helm. The impression is that by Christmas we can arrive at something concrete, in order to simultaneously define the amount of the necessary capital strengthening and to start implementing it shortly: the favorable market moment, characterized by ample liquidity, moreover advises not to excessively extend the timing of a fundamental capital increase for the institute and at the same time delicate for the new structure that Carige's shareholders will be able to adopt.
