MPS, THAT "BOMB" THROWN AT THE ASSEMBLY BY TANNO
BACKGROUND OF THE INVESTIGATION ON THE PURCHASE OF ANTONVENETA
The episode, during the last meeting of Monte Paschi, had been somewhat ignored by everyone. Responding to a question from a small shareholder, Dr. Tommaso di Tanno, an eminent scholar of tax science close to Vincenzo Visco (and Massimo D'Alema) and member of the board of statutory auditors of Mps, had replied with respect to doubts about the price, close to 9 billion, paid for Banca Antonveneta, that, although no due diligence was carried out, the documents received by the panel were found to be correct on a formal and substantial level.
"The asset value of the Bank was 2,3 billion and it was purchased for 9 billion – added Di Tanno -. I won't go into the merits of whether the price of 9 billion was appropriate". Di Tanno recalls that the preventive due diligence on the Veneto bank "was not carried out", however the data "turned out to be true". A real "bomb" detonated by one of the most authoritative tax experts of the Pd, often interviewed, among other things, for the services of "Report", the TV program that on Sunday evening, not by chance, turned the spotlight on Siena, where other factions of the Democratic Party, especially Catholics, have been challenging each other for weeks on Mps.
A bombshell that also had an immediate effect on the stock market, when the news of the blitz ordered by the judiciary spread this morning: the stock, which had fallen sharply since mid-morning, lost 11% on its most dramatic day, which began shortly after the sunrise.
But the reaction of the financial markets is only the tip of the iceberg of an earthquake which is undoubtedly destined to accelerate the revolution in Monte dei Paschi. From this point of view, it is difficult to find a more effective and dramatic image of the change taking place: the financiers who take away documents and PCs from the Siena office, in front of the new president Alessandro Profumo, who had already risen before dawn from his new home in Ponsacco, and newly ad Fabrizio Viola.
Yet, qhen around Piazza del Palio, under the Torre del Mangia, the Sienese saw a heavy traffic of Fiamme Gialle cars at 7 in the morning, the fans' thoughts immediately went to the black and whites of Siena football: look, it was the tam tam, that a blitz is about to start to bury the team in Serie B. In the newspapers, with regard to Monte Paschi, reference was mostly made to the indignation of the mayor of Siena, Franco Ceccuzzi, against Report; the mayor had announced that he would verify the possibility of taking legal action against a "very far from reality" and "seriously offensive" representation of the city. Even the Sienese PDL spoke of a "superficial" transmission.
But reality often surpassed the thesis of a "superficial" reportage: after a few minutes it was understood that the "canaries" were about to violate the Rocca Salimbeni, the fortress of Monte Paschi untouched for more than 500 years, the coffer celebrated by Luciano Pavarotti at the time of a listing 15 years ago which now seems 5.000 years old: the Gdf, on behalf of the Public Prosecutor's Office, was collecting documents on the most discussed and troubled operation in the history of Sienese finance, the acquisition of Antonveneta Bank.
The operation involved 150 financiers, who sifted through all the button rooms of local power. The "canaries" knocked on the door of Villa Stasi, the home of thethe former president of the Mps bank Giuseppe Mussari, now president of the Abi: his house and his office have been searched but he is not being investigated. Searches were also carried out in the home of the president Gabriello Mancini, of Antonio Vigni, former general manager of the Monte and of the current director general of the Mps Foundation Claudio Pieri and other managers of both the Foundation and the Bank. Not only that: other searches were carried out in other Italian cities. At the center of the investigation, the acquisition of the Antonveneta bank which took place in 2008: there are at least two suspects. The notices of guarantee have been notified to representatives of Mps.
The Guardia di Finanza also presented itself at the Mediobanca offices in Milan, "in relation - informs a note - to operations carried out by the MPS group, in which Mediobanca has covered, together with other primary international institutions, a technical role connected with its ordinary operations".
In fact, the investigation seems to concern all the aspects of one of the most discussed and questionable financial transactions in recent years: the purchase, in 2007, of Banca Antoveneta from Banco Santander but also the capital increase of 2008 for the part of the so-called "Fresh" of one billion euro suggested by a banking syndicate. One solution, is the doubt of the investigators, chosen to hinder the supervisory authority. In fact, the Siena prosecutor hypothesizes crimes "manipulating the market and impeding the functions of the supervisory authorities in relation to the financial operations for obtaining the resources necessary for the acquisition of Banca Antonveneta and the existing loans in favor of the Monte dei Paschi Foundation". This is what is explained in a press release from the Siena prosecutor's office released by the Guardia di Finanza regarding the blitz.
From a criminal point of view, a long, difficult and complex investigation is expected. The consequences will be much faster. The position of Giuseppe Mussari at the top of ABI is weakened. The change is accelerated both in Monte Paschi and in the top management of the Foundation. The credibility of the Foundations system is certainly undermined, for the first time at the center of an investigation that questions its role as a transmission belt between politics, civil society and big finance. Paradoxically, the clean-up and re-foundation work entrusted to Alessandro Profumo was simplified, and he would encounter fewer obstacles on the road to reform.
