Wednesday 2 July in Piazza Affari makes its debut Fineco, which he intends to distribute in the next few years a generous dividend e grow in Italy internally. This was announced by the managing director and founder of the company, Alessandro Foti, who spoke this morning at the Milan Stock Exchange to present theIpo of the multi-channel direct bank of the Unicredit group. The road show, which began yesterday in Frankfurt, will continue with three days in London, will stop next week in the United States (in New York and perhaps in Boston) and will end in France, probably in Paris. The public offering and the institutional placement started yesterday and will end on June 26th.
The company has not yet adopted a dividend policy for the next few years, but Foti believes it is "capable of continuing to have a policy at the top, generous end of the market", while respecting the capital ratios required by the supervisory authorities. Fineco sees growth opportunities for the future especially in investment services, but excludes any possible acquisition abroad: "We believe it wiser that the company's managerial focus remains on Italy", explained Foti.
Together with that of Fincantieri, the IPO of Fineco is the most important of the Milanese summer and does not include capital increases, but only the sale of shares. After the go-ahead given last week by Borsa Italiana and Consob, Unicredit, currently the sole shareholder of the Bank, will bring to the market up to 34,5% of the company. At the end of the offer period, the share price will be defined in a range between 3,5 and 4,4 euros per share, which corresponds to one valuation of the company between 2,1 and 2,66 billion. The securities should be paid on July 2, the same date scheduled for the start of trading.
In detail, they will be offered up to 181,3 million shares (in lots of one thousand and 10 thousand pieces), equal to 30% of the capital; a greenshoe option on another 4,5% was granted to the coordinating banks (Ubs, UniCredit corporate & investment banking and Mediobanca), who will be able to exercise it, even only partially, within 30 days following the listing. Furthermore, 10% of the shares put on the market will be reserved for retail, while 90% will go to institutional investors. Lastly, between 3,4 and 4,2 million shares will be reserved for employees and promoters.
“With the listing, Fineco marks a particularly important moment in its growth path – underlined Foti last week -. The transaction will make it possible to fully exploit the company's potential thanks to the advantages of greater transparency, visibility and efficiency that will derive from opening up to the market”.
For Unicredit – who "will remain the majority shareholder", assured the CEO Federico Ghizzoni -, the listing of Fineco will bring in at least 800 million and a capital gain of over 400. Part of these resources will be used to achieve a difficult objective: by 2017, in fact, Unicredit aims to increase the financial assets of asset gathering from 76 to 111 billion. The process will also involve the German subsidiary Dab and the Austrian Dat, but Fineco will take the lion's share, since the asset management market in our country has greater growth prospects.
Another element in favor of the Italian Bank is the particular business formula, which has only one counterpart, namely Charles Schwab, a US financial group with a capitalization of 25 billion dollars on Wall Street. In summary, the Fineco model plans to conduct brokerage and asset gathering activities through a digital platform and a network of financial advisors and shops. The combination of the reduced costs guaranteed by the web and the high profitability linked to asset management has allowed Fineco to bring Unicredit a Roe of over 19,8% in the last three years, with dividends of 59 million in 2011, 111 in 2012 and 20 in 2013, when 74% of profits were allocated to reserves.
