Monte dei Paschi accelerates on the sale and recovery of non-performing loans and is ready to use the life preserver provided by the newborn Fondo Atlante, created to help banks in capital increases and purchase non-performing loans.
“The focus will remain on asset quality. On the one hand, we will strengthen both the sale and recovery of non-performing loans”, said the managing director, Fabrizio Viola, opening the work of the meeting currently in progress which approved the 2015 financial statements by a large majority, closed with a net profit of 388 million euros due to the new accounting of the Alexandria contract which brought a benefit of 500 million to the accounts.
Net of this accounting entry, requested by Consob, the bank closed the consolidated financial statements with a loss of 112 million euro. On this basis, the closing of the year with a loss net of this extraordinary accounting item, the institute could pay the Treasury with new shares, at the beginning of July, the residual coupon due on the Monti Bonds relating to 2015, increasing the public participation to 7% from the current 4%.
The shareholders also approved the proposal to allocate the parent company's individual net profit for the year (416,6 million) and available reserves (54 million euro) to partially cover the negative reserves which amount to 708 million euro, again at due to the Alexandria transaction and the costs of the 2015 capital increase.
"The bank's goal", continued Viola, "is to strengthen the plan for the sale of non-performing loans which provides for the sale of 5,5 billion euros by 2018 and to increase the size of NPLs sold to allow us to work better with those who will remain." It should be emphasized that of the 5,5 billion expected, 2 have already been sold.
Monte dei Paschi will record a reduction in non-performing loans and capital-absorbing provisions. For this reason, attention will now focus on the Atlante fund, "we are very attentive to these initiatives and will do our part because it brings benefits not only to MPS, but to the entire banking system", explained the CEO of the Sienese bank , anticipating that if the project were to go through, the bank will evaluate "the possible and probable benefits in terms of accelerating the NPL portfolio reduction process".
Underlined that, at the end of 2015, the Tuscan institute had around 10 billion in net non-performing loans, a figure which is equivalent to almost 9% of its total loans and which corresponds to double the banking sector average. Precisely for this Atlante could be an opportunity not to be missed. Marello Clarich, president of the MPS Foundation declared that "if the Atlante fund will guarantee investors returns that are expected to be very high, at least according to what seems to be said, it will serve in part to alleviate this enormous burden that all Italian banks have and in particular Monte dei Paschi ".
Returning to the meeting, the shareholders rejected two requests for liability actions against the former chairman Alessandro Profumo and the managing director Fabrizio Viola. The requests were presented on the basis of an alleged falsity of the financial statements linked to the different classification requested by Consob for the Alexandria operation. Only 0,01% of the shares present were in favour.
