Apart from the news that the value of shareholders' equity exceeded, for the first time, six billion euros (to be precise, it amounted to 6,014 billion, with an increase of 133,6 million compared to 31 December 2016), the Compagnia di San Paolo's 2017 financial statements report other interesting and significant data and facts, in addition to those released after its approval by the Steering Committee.
Leafing through the document, in fact, you can find that the total return (sum of the capital appreciation and the collection of dividends divided by the original investment), i.e. the total return on the investment in Intesa Sanpaolo was 21,8%, compared with 2,2% on investments in Fondaco funds Sgr, the company that manages 44,5% of the financial assets portfolio of the Compagnia di San Paolo.
If, therefore, the return on the entire investment portfolio of the Turin institution chaired by Francesco Profumo was 12%, it is mainly due to the investment in Intesa Sanpaolo, from which a net dividend of 210 million has arrived (the gross is state of 258 million).
Just the flow of money coming from the Bank led by Carlo Messina, always very generous with its shareholders, to whom it distributes very high shares of profits, cannot help but make us reflect on the consequences of complying with that "indication" contained in the "Protocol of Acri-Mef agreement" (binding agreement between the Association of foundations of banking origin chaired by the Lombard Giuseppe Guzzetti and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which is its Supervisory Authority), "indication" that, for foundations signatories, entails the following obligation: "In any case, the assets cannot be used, directly or indirectly, in exposures to a single person for an overall amount exceeding one third of the total assets of the Foundation's balance sheet, valuing, at the fair value, exposures and components of balance sheet assets”.
In other words, the Compagnia di San Paolo, which has financial assets in its portfolio for a market value (fair value) of 7,3 billion, 45,9% of which relating to the investment in Intesa Sanpaolo, still has to significantly reduce its stake in the Bank, despite having already reduced it to 7,22% of the entire capital as of 31 last December.
In short, beyond other considerations, the Compagnia di San Paolo finds itself forced to drastically reduce a high-yield investment to invest in assets other than unpredictable returns, moreover with the observation that the diversification of recent years has not been rewarding . All on the ritual altar of risk reduction, even if there are those who continue to think that the Acri-Mef Memorandum of Understanding was and is a serious mistake.
However, returning to the financial statements of the Company, which has 86 employees, 14 of whom are managers (including the General Secretary), one can read, among other things, that the purchase of 1% of the capital of the Bank of Italy cost 75 million, the surplus for the year (net profit) decreased by 14 million compared to 2016 and that the charges relating to the statutory bodies, including VAT, social security contributions, fell to 1,053 million (1,169 the previous year) and welfare.
In particular, in 2017 the costs were 90.147 euros for the president (the annual emolument is 70.000 euros), 449.808 euros for the General Council, 257.269 euros for the Management Committee (Board of Directors), 218.234 euros for the Board of Auditors and 37.648 Euros for the Supervisory Body. Costs for all personnel amounted to 7,638 million.
From the blog Northwest.
