The Alexandria case, with the scandal of the derivatives put in place by the old management of Monte dei Paschi to hide the budget losses of recent years, overwhelms the oldest Bank of Italy and pushes its former president, the lawyer-banker Giuseppe Mussari to also leave the top of the ABI with immediate effect.
Mussari's decision came suddenly but the prerequisites for a ruinous end of the Calabrian lawyer transplanted to Siena were all there. After a brilliant start both in politics, in the ranks of the Sienese DS, and in the profession, where he had become president of the Siena penal union, Mussari began to take the first steps in his career as a banker, first becoming president of the very powerful Monte dei Paschi Foundation and then president of the bank itself. And this is where the troubles that ended up overwhelming him began. Even if – this must be said – Mussari probably pays for mistakes that were not all his but one above all: that of having surrounded himself by a completely inadequate managerial team at Monte and above all by a general manager like Antonio Vigni, a local manager close to the 'Opus Dei, who was primarily responsible for managing the bank but who combined one trouble after another, including the fatal Alexandria contract on derivatives to hide the losses in the balance sheet.
The first shadows on Mussari are fatally derived from the acquisition of Antonveneta: it seemed the last possible tram for a bank like Mps which did not want to condemn itself to a purely regional bank but it was a boomerang, despite the fact that the operation had also been approved by the Banca d 'Italy. Antonveneta was paid at stratospheric prices and was purchased without even a shred of due diligence. The investigation by the Siena prosecutor's office which seeks to understand whether the operation was accompanied by a round of bribes to politicians and intermediaries - and in which Mussari is not under investigation - contributed greatly to weakening the image of the president of the ABI until questioning this last summer, once he left his posts at Monte, also his confirmation at the top of the ABI itself.
It goes without saying that Monte's poor financial results added fuel to the fire, but the bank's abnormal exposure to Italian government bonds also accentuated the image of an institution in disarray in which Mussari, increasingly distracted by Roman commitments in Abi evidently couldn't counterbalance the ruinous management of Vigni and his team.
The Alexandria case, which could also have criminal implications and which could lead to a liability action by the current MPS against the old guard, is the straw that overflows the vase. According to what has so far been possible to understand, Monte dei Paschi, through its general manager and its financial director, would have signed three derivative contracts in 2009 with investment banks (Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Nomura) to move forward financial losses that could have had a very negative impact on the bank's balance sheet. The bank's new managers – Alessandro Profumo and Fabrizio Viola – noticed this when they reviewed previous accounts, having already been forced to resort to Monti bonds to strengthen the bank's capital base. In the next few hours, the MPS board of directors will evaluate the situation and then face the extraordinary meeting, but Mussari's resignation from the ABI is far from closing the case and also paves the way for the succession at the top of Confindustria banks. But this is perhaps the least aspect of a case of mismanagement which has already cost a lot to Monte dei Paschi and which demonstrates, once again, how much damage politics can do when it enters the paths of finance and banking.
