After a thousand judicial tribulations linked essentially to the uncertainty of the transformation process into a joint stock company following the suspensive interventions of the Council of State and the Tar on the reform of cooperative banks, Banca Popolare di Bari - which is the largest bank in the South - is back serene.
In a few days, the Apulian bank, chaired by Marco Jacobini, collected two very favorable verdicts which will perhaps fill its coffers but which will certainly boost its image.
The latest occurred in recent days when the Civil Court of L'Aquila sentenced the former heads of Abruzzo's Banca Tercas to compensate Banca Popolare di Bari for a total of 368 million euros, waiting for the criminal justice to pronounce itself on the facts . The investigations ascertained that the former top management of Tercas, with a series of irregular loans and lines of credit to friendly companies and family members, plundered the bank purchased in 2014, on the advice of the Bank of Italy, from Banca Popolare di Bari, which was the last to pay cash - 250 million euros - the rescue of a credit institution that was going bankrupt, before Ubi and Intesa took over - at a purely symbolic price of one euro - the three Good Banks of Central Italy and the two banks respectively come.
Not only that, but in addition to paying 250 million which forced the relevant bank to make heavy write-downs in the 2015 balance sheet, Banca Popolare di Bari correctly compensated Tercas bondholders for 120 million euros who requested, as their right, the repayment of the bonds that the old top management of the Abruzzo bank would never have been able to honor.
Of all this, in addition to the sentences of the Civil Court of L'Aquila, Banca Popolare di Bari publicly acknowledges the Ministry of the Economy led by Pier Carlo Padoan who, responding in recent days to a parliamentary question from the Italian Left, on governance and balance sheet of the first southern bank, he recalled how the Bank of Italy, on the basis of the accounts as at 30 June 2017, found that Pop Bari even has "capitalisation ratios higher than the regulatory limits in force". In fact, against a minimum requirement of 4,5%, the CET 1 ratio of Banca Popolare di Bari – as at 31/12/2016 – was found to be 9,92%, while the Total Capital ratio was of 13,03% against a minimum requirement of 8%.
In a favorable sense to the Banca Popolare di Bari group, which is now transforming itself into a joint stock company, Consob also pronounced itself, approving two capital increases in 2014 and 2015 and recalling how the institution, after the losses 2015 linked to the extraordinary adjustments to the financial statements for the acquisition of Tercas, has already returned to profit for 2016 million euro in 5,2.
Finally, on the governance of Banca Popolare di Bari, the Mef reported to Parliament that the Bank of Italy has received positive responses from Internal Audit and from the bank's Board of Statutory Auditors on the improvements previously requested by the Supervisory Authority of Via Nazionale and subsequently implemented.
Attachments: Reply to parliamentary question
