Preparations are underway for the capital increase of Monte dei Paschi di Siena scheduled for the end of the current year, immediately after the constitutional referendum of 4 December.
The new CEO Marco Morelli has no intention of leaving anything to chance and continues to work on several fronts, trying to fit the necessary pieces together to outline the contours of the operation.
At Piazza Affari the stock travels to historic lows. Even today, the Sienese bank's shares are in deep red, dropping 3% to 0,1826 euros. An amount that increases the difficulties of carrying out the 5 billion euro recapitalization given that, at this price, MPS risks flooding the market with new shares.
The purpose of the new managing director of the Tuscan institute therefore seems to be to reduce the size of the operation. One of the hypotheses currently under consideration would be to proceed with a grouping of MPS shares in view of the capital increase.
It should be emphasized that the current price of the stock requires a recapitalization without option rights, which means that the current shareholders will have to dig into their wallets to keep their position intact.
In the meantime, work on the voluntary conversion of subordinated bonds into sharesi which should involve both institutional investors and the retail public in order to also exploit the bonds placed by MPS to 40 small savers, maturing in 2018.
At the same time JP Morgan and Mediobanca, the banks leading the guarantee consortium for the capital increase, are trying to find possible new buyers. In this sense, continues the comparison with in Qatari funds relating to a possible investment of approximately 1 billion in Mps.
