"Minister Boschi asked me if it was possible for Unicredit to hypothesize a purchase of Banca Etruria. I replied that I was unable to give any response to requests of this kind, that we had already been in contact with the e we would have possibly given an answer to the Bank itself, in total autonomy and independence from our part. Thing on which the minister agreed”. These are the words of the former CEO of Unicredit, Federico Ghizzoni, heard today by the parliamentary inquiry committee on banks. Yesterday it was touched to the governor of the Bank of Italy, Ignazio Visco.
“One of the reasons why Minister Boschi asked me to evaluate an entry into Etruria rather than Montepaschi was linked to the size of the Bank – added Ghizzoni – Etruria was smaller and therefore Unicredit's intervention would have been simpler. It was a request that I considered quite normal. Above all, the CEO of a bank like Unicredit must be able to make that clear any request from anywhere, Unicredit makes the final decision. A message absolutely shared by Minister Boschi. For me there was nothing to hide. Two days later I also spoke about this interview with the head of MMA and told my colleagues to continue working in total independence".
In short, Ghizzoni denied having been subjected to pressure: “I knew of Minister Boschi's kinship [with the vice president of Etruria, who was his father, ed], but for me it was irrelevant. There would have been pressure if he had told me curtly to acquire Etruria, which I would have judged unacceptable. Instead he asked me if it was possible for us to evaluate an acquisition. There was a request but it did not affect our ability to intervene independently".
The former CEO of Unicredit then made a clarification: "More specifically, Minister Boschi expressed his concern not so much for the Tuscan banks, Mps and Etruria, but for the negative impact that the banking crises could have had on the Tuscan territory, such as a reduction in the supply of credit to households and businesses, especially small businesses, which are the heart of the Tuscan economy. For my part, I pointed out that I shared this aspect: there could be this negative impact, but I thought that other healthy banks would take the positions abandoned by the more troubled banks. The real issue was how to reduce the negative impact on the Tuscan economy. I guess it also had to do with the fact that there was his constituency of competence".
The meeting therefore ended with this agreement, "that the last word belonged to Unicredit, which would act exclusively in its own interest - said Ghizzoni again - It was a cordial conversation: personally I didn't feel any pressure from the minister. From that moment on, there were no further contacts."
But then Ghizzoni also revealed that he had received "an email from Marco Carrai on December 13th. He said: 'Just to tell you that on Etruria I was asked to solicit you, if possible and respecting the roles, to get an answer'. My first reaction was to think about who could have asked Carrai for this reminder. I felt like excluding the Bank. In the end, I didn't ask Carrai for any clarification so as not to open other channels of communication. I replied confirming that we were working and that we would contact the top management of Etruria. For me the only possible channel was the institutional one between Bank and Bank. Just that".
Subsequently, answering a question in the commission addressed to him by the president Pier Ferdinando Casini, Ghizzoni said he had not registered no change of attitude on the part of the government against the Bank after informing Etruria that - in the light of internal assessments - the acquisition was not possible.
The former CEO of Unicredit then clarified that the answer to Etruria came on January 29, 2015: “We had decided not to invest in Banca Etruria for more than one reason. The most important was that in the meantime the communication from the ECB had arrived with raised capital ratios for all banks. Only the intervention on the good bank required a capital absorption of 27 basis points, which corresponded to approximately one billion. Such an investment was impossible without guaranteed returns. From that moment on, there was no more contact with Banca Etruria either and the bank was placed under receivership on 11 February”.
Finally, Ghizzoni explained that Unicredit evaluated the possibility of the acquisition for economic reasons: "If the bank had been commissioned, it would probably have intervened the deposit protection fund, in which Unicredit has 18%. We wanted to understand if it would cost us more to intervene sooner or later".
