Same set, the Milan Fair. New act. For one of the most exhausting sagas of Piazza Affari. The small members of Bpm know this well in recent years called over and over again to meetings for possible mergers, challenges at the top, clashes over governance. And who today find themselves taking part in the Christmas duel between the protagonists Piero Giarda and Piero Lonardi, with a walk-on role for Andrea Bonomi and his Investindustrial, for almost two years at the helm of the bank and which, after having failed in the transformation project into a joint-stock company, today slipped out of the fray for the top and with list 1 aims for the two places for institutional investors (except as privileged interlocutor for the winning list with veto power over the choice of names for the new board of directors).
The dilemma is always that: changing the skin of one of the most immobile banks in the Italian system. After the crisis, the scandals, the governance problems, a capital increase and a stand-by industrial plan, we now have to go somewhere. So much so that in the end, under pressure from the Bank of Italy, supervision, investigations and the market, in 2012 even the small parliamentarian of trade unions, the Amici della Bpm association, which for many years the lion's share in Piazza Meda and which not surprisingly intercepted 90% of promotions in the bank, according to what emerged last October from a device with which Consob communicated a fine of 570 thousand. But the problem is where to go. A tug-of-war between the various souls of the bank (employee shareholders, pensioners, institutional shareholders, non-employee shareholders) which runs on the per capita vote typical of the cooperatives, complicated by the rules on proxies (five per shareholder) and by the ban on introducing remote voting (here the renewal was sent to the sender at the very last meeting). On the other hand also Bankitalia is now running out of patience. So much so that in the past weeks, in the race for the formation of the lists (from which that of the Mincione-Dini tandem slipped) for the appointment of the CDS who resigned early, via Nazionale had once again ordered that the forces in the field distance themselves from what remains of the Amici Association which still, through its historic men, had the power to influence the vote in the assembly. Are we at the last act "in independence"?
On one side is the list of Peter Giarda Cattolica professor, candidate for the presidency of the Supervisory Board of the national trade unions, who has placed profitability at the center of his proposal, the only way to, in his words, "gain the certainty of remaining alone and not losing its popular DNA ”. On the other Piero Longardi, who has spent years on the side of non-employee shareholders whose list unexpectedly appeared after the withdrawal of the Dini-Mincione tandem, who pushes the concept of independence, warning against the risks of a victory for the competitor Giarda (who has repeatedly rejected the accusations), and attacks the trade unions that "have only done their own interests and are among the main culprits for the situation in which BPM finds itself today". Come on partners.
