The Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari italiani SpA is a company founded way back in 1939 that coordinates and provides support activities to Italian cooperative banks and whose main asset is CartaSì. Today the ICBPI (a very difficult acronym to pronounce) has decided to change its name: it will be called Nexi, a name that looks to the future.
The name change was necessary, given that the banks have no longer been the Institute's reference shareholders since 2015, the year in which 89% of the ownership was divided equally between three funds: Advent International, Bain Capital and Hourglass (chaired by Carlo Pesenti). Some institutes, including Creval, Banco Popolare, Ubi Banca and Banca Sella have remained in the shareholding structure but with minimal stakes.
Many of the popular banks that were and are part of the Institute have taken on the corporate name of SpA and, in addition, over the years the acronym has become inappropriate to define the reality led by Paolo Bertoluzzo.
The three private equity funds have bet heavily on Italy: two billion investments to acquire Icbpi and therefore focus on payment systems. The technological adaptation of the entire activity of the future Nexi alone will absorb approximately 700 million euros. Advent Bain and Clessidra have decided to entrust the restructuring project to the new CEO Paolo Bertoluzzo (for 17 years at the top of Vodafone) and the presidency to Franco Bernabè, former executive chairman of Telecom Italia.
The next step in the plan launched at the end of 2015 envisages the spin-off of the activities of CartaSì, Nexi's main asset.
