Amidst scandals, controversies, (negative) surprises and information arriving more from the courts than from the company financial statements, Piazza Affari is trying to make its voice heard in the language that is most familiar to it: prices. Let's see how.
ENI +1,5%
The stock, after a slightly negative start, is moving in positive territory despite the downgrade suffered by Citigroup from buy a neutral. On a normal day this news would have pushed the six-legged dog down. But the day after the search in the office and at the home of CEO Paolo Scaroni, investigated together with seven other group executives in the international corruption investigation in Algeria, everything is except that any day, also because the news of the development of the surveys fell on Thursday afternoon with the stock exchange open, favoring a collapse of 4,62%.
What value can be given to today's rebound? Pending more convincing tests, the feeling is that international investors, the main shareholders of the six-legged dog together with the Treasury, interpret Thursday's collapse more as a buying opportunity than as a guilty verdict for the governance of the group. Also because any bribe paid to a bagman of a minister of Algeria, a country with which ENI has worked since the time of Enrico Mattei, is judged in the world of oil and "oil equipment" more as an accident at work than an exception to the rules of the sector.
SAIPEM -2,43%
Investors' anger instead unloads on Saipem, 43% controlled by ENI but, as Scaroni himself points out, dependent "for 90% of its activity on the works for all our competitors, from Shell to Total which if only they were touched by the suspicion that we know what they are doing, they would no longer work”.
The Algerian affair, however, has nothing to do with the anger of the shareholder funds of one of the few leading multinationals of Italian capitalism. If anything, the feeling of a colossal mockery is growing, which has provoked a strong protest at Consob itself which has forced the company, in the late afternoon of Thursday, to hold a conference call (the second in about ten days) to respond to analysts stressed by the news: first, on the morning of January 28, the surprise sale of a 2,1% package by Black Rock; a few hours later, on the morning of January 29, the profit warning on 2012 profits and on 2013 forecasts which, the following day, caused the share to lose approximately 30% in value. Yesterday morning, February 6, a new twist, this time with a positive sign: within a few days the company concluded contracts for 3,3 billion.
Why not if it was mentioned in previous meetings? Because, replied the CEO Umberto Vergine, “one of these contracts was officially signed two days ago and we still didn't have the ok from the counterparties for the others. That said, even if we had announced them last week, our estimates for 2013 would have remained the same."
An explanation that, judging by the reaction of investors, is not very convincing. While waiting for Consob to shed light on the all too timely sale of January 28th. Or who might have taken advantage of the stock's sudden decline to secure a robust profit in a matter of days.
MONTE PASCHI +2,42%
The recovery of the most dazed title of 2013 continues, the protagonist of Piazza Affari but even more of the electoral square of the Bel Paese.
After so many twists and turns, the story of Monte seems to have moved along less confused tracks: on the one hand, the judicial investigation, destined to bring out bribes, pythic and lobbying pressures, the concealment of information sensitive to the acquitted supervisory authorities, for their behavior, from the "technical" examination of the Monetary Fund. On the other hand, the far from easy recovery attempt of the institution whose assets are now in practice represented by state loans which it is hoped to repay by 2016.
In this context, the market looks favorably on the cleaning action accelerated by the evolution of the investigations. Mps canceled the effects of the three notorious contracts, Alexandria, Santorini and Nota Italia with which the top management "gambled", mostly on the basis of covered purchases of BTPs, with a twofold objective: a) to recover the money sacrificed for the Antonveneta operation; b) acquire merits towards the Ministry of Economy (Tremonti era) thanks to the contribution to the trench of the public debt.
Now the bank is preparing to abandon the improper role of hedge fund to return to commercial banking. Meanwhile, the new bylaws will limit the role of the Foundation, whose claim to retain 51% despite acquisitions beyond Monte's reach. Not only must the arrival of a strong financial partner be taken into account, as Alessandro Profumo hopes, but the obligation for the headquarters to be domiciled in Siena is about to be canceled from the statute, which could make it possible, if necessary, to merge with other institute. The market approves.
SEAT +47,62%
Who is buying up the shares of the company that plummeted to 0,07 euros on the wave of the request for an arrangement with creditors? Reading the forums, very active on the fate of the title in which hundreds of thousands of members were burned with the match in hand, one can see the work of yet another white knight, this time Chinese. Gossip stinks of fib a kilometer away but it is nonetheless a very insidious bait for many savers tempted, after the collapse, by the bad temptation to "average" with the old stocks.
Why doesn't Consob intervene for once before the oxen have escaped from the stables? In the meantime, news is awaited on the checks that the Commission has launched on the timing of the cancellation of the investment in Seat Pagine Gialle by the Sothic Capital Management fund which held a 7,675% stake since the end of August 2012, then reduced to 4,615% on 25 last January and then zeroed on 29 January, the day on which Seat Pagine Gialle communicated its intention not to proceed with the payment of the six-monthly coupon on Senior Secured bonds of 42,2 million euro maturing two days later.
