Mps wants to be multilocal. This was said by the institute's president, Alessandro Profumo, who met the press after a day of meetings in Padua to present the future of the subsidiary Antonveneta to employees, managers, trade unions, institutions and entrepreneurs. “Our will – underlined Profumo – is to be multi-local: I've been at the Monte for two months and it's the second time I've come to Padua. It is an important signal, I know how much value there is in Veneto".
The meetings, according to the manager, served to "give voice and emphasis" to the strong points of the plan and to Antonveneta's role: "The intention is to explain to the Paduan community what we are doing - he added - how important Padua is for us and the awareness of the concept of roots and of the relationships we have on the territory”.
On the future of the Banca Veneta brand, the president of MPS preferred not to say too much: “We want to preserve the brand according to its value for the various territories and market segments. It will be a question of carrying out specific analyses. One of MPS's strengths is that it has strong territorial roots and therefore a strong understanding of what value they have”. Precisely for this reason, the "area director's responsibilities will not be affected", also for the purpose of "staying close to customers, which is the important thing".
No numbers, however, as regards the closures of branches. "We are working on it, we don't want to give numbers yet", he said, specifying that the goal "is to retain 90% of the customers and the masses of the points that we are going to close" and recalling how "Antonventa was already in the field a project to rationalize the branches, because some do not go to break even”.
However, Mps has no intention of using "the cleaver" on personnel: "We need to cut costs, but we hope to do it in a sustainable way - continued Profumo - In Italy there are twice as many branches as in other countries". MPS, in its business plan, aims to reduce the workforce by 4.600 people, of which 1.200 in companies held for sale and 2.360 in a support structure, which should be outsourced. Then there are about 500 people who will reach retirement age and natural turnover is identified in about 850 employees. Approximately 400 recruitments and the exit of 100 executives are also expected. "The only area where there may be layoffs is this – continued the manager – but we will have to talk to everyone".
Profumo then replied remotely to the president of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia, who this morning had invited the group to take into account the expectations of the territory. “I thank Zaia because he said that he thinks that Viola and I are good business managers”, he said with a smile, and then explained that the Bank “will obviously take the needs of the Veneto into account. We know that customers pay us salaries and enhancing the customer base we have here is an application of intelligence. It is in our interest to take their interests into account."
