The Board of Directors of Banca Popolare di Sondrio has convened the extraordinary shareholders' meeting for the first session on 27 April and for the second session on the 28th. The objective is to approve a capital increase for a maximum amount of 40 million euro, including any surcharge and excluding the option right. The transaction, which provides for the issue of ordinary shares, is functional to the acquisition of Cassa di Risparmio di Cento.
Pop Sondrio specifies in a note that the negotiations with the Cassa di Risparmio di Cento Foundation are in an advanced stage of negotiation and, where the parties reach an agreement of mutual satisfaction on all the terms and conditions of the operation, it is expected that the agreements binding agreements can be signed over the next few weeks.
As communicated at the time of the signing of the letter of intent between Popolare di Sondrio and the Foundation - continues the note - the operation would provide for the acquisition of Cassa di Risparmio di Cento (Crc) in two phases. In the first phase, Pop Sondrio would acquire 51% of the share capital of Crc from the Foundation against an exchange for Pop Sondrio shares and, for a minor part, with the payment of a cash consideration. The proposal to grant the Board the power to increase the capital would precisely serve this share swap.
In the second phase, approximately by the end of 2020, Pop Sondrio would define the technical methods suitable for allowing the other shareholders of the Cassa and the Foundation, for the residual part of the shares still in its possession, to exchange or receive Pop Sondrio shares in exchange of those of the Cassa at economic conditions substantially in line with those applied in the first phase, subject to the appropriate adjustments, so as to increase the shareholding of Pop Sondrio in the share capital of the Cassa to at least 67% and potentially up to 100%
Pop Sondrio's board of directors, again in the meeting held on 25 March, granted the Chief Executive Officer and the Chairman the powers to proceed with the definition and finalization of the contractual documentation for the transaction to purchase the Cassa di Risparmio di Cento described above.
The Sondrio institute is, together with Popolare di Bari, one of the two cooperative banks that have not yet completed the transformation process in Spa and for which a race against time is expected to adapt to the provisions of the reform without risking the withdrawal of the banking license.
