The managing director of the Monte dei Paschi, Marco Morelli, illustrated today to the Finance committees of the Chamber and Senate the state of the Sienese bank and the course it intends to follow in view of thearrival of the Treasury as the first shareholder and in view of new plan which will be presented by February to the ECB, which must authorize it.
MPS aims to create a path in which the State "is not in the predominant position". The reaction of the group's 25 employees in recent months in which the bank has been subjected to "strong commercial and media pressure - commented the CEO - gives us awareness that the recovery plan is possible in view of the temporary nature of the state intervention. Our goal is for the bank to find a path with the state not in the prevailing position".
As regards non-performing loans, Monte dei Paschi aims to confirm the block sale of 27 billion but it will be necessary to evaluate the outcome of the negotiation with the European Commission's DG Comp. “The objective of the bank's management – Morelli pointed out – is to continue with the sale en bloc of non-performing loans. We want to get rid of it as quickly as possible."
The bank “at the beginning of December – concluded the manager – suffered significant outflows of deposits. From the end of the year and from the beginning of the month, the phenomenon came to a complete halt because the lack of clarity regarding the bank's shareholding structure diminished”.
From what was understood from yesterday's hearing, also in Parliament, of the head of Supervision of the Bank of Italy, Carmelo Barbagallo, one of the thorniest issues to obtain the go-ahead from Frankfurt will be the definition of the criteria for evaluating the problem loans of MPS, on which a tough confrontation between the two central banks is expected.
Monte's importance in the Italian and European financial arena obviously attracts the limelight to the Sienese bank, but it is not the only open dossier. It's popular banks to keep the attention of the market pending the verdict of the Constitutional Court on the Renzi reform which should however be much milder than the dry intervention of the Council of State on the general structure of the reform and on the problems connected with the exercise of the right of withdrawal and to the reimbursements of the shareholders on the occasion of the transformation into a spa.
After purchasing three Good Banks (Etruria, Marche e Charge yourself) by Ubi and after the marriage between the Banco Popolare , bpm from which the third Italian bank was born (Bpm bank), other aggregations are on the way and it is no coincidence that the Valtellinese credit yesterday appointed Equita Sim, chaired by Alessandro Profumo, and Mediobanca as its advisors in view of possible consolidation operations. There are many suitors for the wedding with the Valtellinese bank but it is in pole position Bper, while the hypothesis of a valley marriage with Popolare di Sondrio has lost ground, postponing its transformation into a joint-stock company after appealing to the Council of State.
Same Bper however, he does not lose sight of what remains of the Good Banks and next Tuesday he should present his offer to take over Carife for the symbolic price of one euro.
