Moody's in its weekly analysis raises doubts on the maxi write-downs on goodwill for 10,2 billion euro made last week by Unicredit. The perplexities of the rating agency concern the profitability of the domestic network of Italian banks, recalling the monstrous loss of Unicredit in the third quarter (10,6 billion euros), mainly due to goodwill write-downs from past acquisitions.
In addition, Piazza Cordusio reported an operating profit of 1,85 billion euros in the July-September period, down from the 2,5 billion of the previous quarter. Following these results, Moody's has placed Unicredit's rating under observation for a possible downgrade and its main subsidiaries.
In October, the rating agency had downgraded the Milanese bank to A2, mainly due to doubts about the profitability of its domestic network. “In our view – write the Moody's experts – this decline in profitability could be a consequence of the rapid expansion of Unicredit during the last ten years, especially as regards the merger with Capitalia in 2007 and the acquisitions in Kazakhstan and Ukraine ”.
